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FRIENDS  OF  THE  LIIiRARY 


Mr.   JOHN  C.    ROSE 


donor 


BY    ANNA    FULLER. 


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Sketched  in  a  New  England  Suburb.     Seventh  edi 
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"  The  scant  material  of  which  many  of  them  are  composed, 
and  the  satisfactory  manner  of  their  treatment,  cause  wonder 
at  the  same  time  that  they  arouse  admiration,  for  it  must  be 
admitted  that  only  a  thorough  artist  can  accomplish  this  end 
with  a  genre  picture." — Cleveland  Leader. 

"  The  lines  the  author  cuts  in  her  vignette  are  sharp  and 
clear,  but  she  has,  too,  not  alone  the  knack  of  color,  but,  what 
is  rarer,  the  gift  of  humor." — N.  J'.  Times. 

a  literary  Courtsbip. 

Under    the    Auspices    of    Pike's    Peak.       Eighth 
edition.       I2mo,   illustrated          .         .        $1.00 

"  If  you  know  of  any  one  in  the  blues,  or  contemplating 
a  journey,  or  in  any  of  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety -nine 
conditions  when  pleasant  reading  is  likely  to  prove  acceptable, 
advise  him  to  get  this  little  story,  or,  better  still,  make  him  a 
present  of  it." — Chicago  Interior. 

"  A  delightful  little  love  story.  Like  her  other  book  it  is 
brigjht  and  breezy  ;  its  humor  is  crisp  and  the  general  idea  is 
decidedly  original.  It  is  just  the  book  to  slip  into  the  pocket 
for  a  journey,  when  one  does  not  care  for  a  novel  or  serious 
reading." — Boston  Times. 

peak  and  prairie. 

From    the    Leaves    of  a  Colorado    Sketch-Book. 
l6mo,  cloth fi.oo 


H  %itecar£  Courtship 


UNDER  THE   AUSPICES   OF 
PIKE'S   PEAK 


*T  is  but  the  fancy  of  an  idle  hour, 
Shut  in  betwixt  the  pages  of  a  book. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW   YORK  LONDON 

27  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  ST.  24  BEDFORD  ST.,  STRAND 

Jht  IJnichtrboekrr  |l«ss 
1894 


.  COPYRIGHT,  1893 

BY 
ANNA  FULLER 


eiectrotyped.  Printed  and  Bound  by 

tEbe  ftnicberbocfeer  f>rcse,  Hew  jr>orfc 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  Sons 


TO 

K.  D.  H 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.— THE  Pow-wow i 

II. — THE  NOM-DE-PLUME 6 

in.— THE  OTHER  LILIAN  ...  .    14 

IV. — POEMS,  BY  JOVE  ! 31 

V.— HINTS  AND  GUESSES 40 

VI. — THE  PILGRIMAGE 52 

VII.— THE  PRAIRIE 58 

VIII. — WITHIN  THE  PORTIERES 64 

IX.— THE  GATEWAY 79 

X.— CONFIDENCES 91 

XI. — A  DILEMMA 100 

XII.— HER  CANON 114 

XIII.— AN  AUTO-DA-FB 126 

XIV.— AT  CROSS  PURPOSES 134 

XV.— EPISODES 143 

XVI.— A  BIRD  IN  A  CAGE 157 

XVII.— ON  HORSEBACK  1 174 

XVUI.-A  TOAST       .,,.,,,,  177 


A  LITERARY  COURTSHIP. 


I. 


THE  POW-WOW. 

JOHN  BRUNT  was  a  lucky  fellow— is 
^  still  for  the  matter  of  that.  Every 
body  knows  his  books  ;  that  capital  vol 
ume  of  Travels  at  the  South  Pole,  the 
two  series  of  essays  on  The  Modern 
Wherewithal,  and  his  Reign  of  Louis 
XI,  which  all  the  historical  bigwigs 
have  sanctioned.  From  the  outset,  Brunt 
was  blessed  with  that  happiest  of  combi 
nations,  a  moderate  income  and  a  taste  for 


2  B  Xtterarg  Courtship 

literature.  Now  literature,  as  has  been 
often  observed,  is  a  first-rate  thing,  if  you 
have  an  income  to  back  it  up  with,  but 
for  a  poor  devil  out  at  elbows  pecuniarily, 
like  some  of  us,  writing  books  is  about 
as  practical  an  occupation  as  keeping  a 
yacht. 

John  was  a  great  fellow  for  a  discussion, 
and  was  never  satisfied  till  he  had  proved 
his  point.  It  is  my  opinion  that  if  he  had 
hazarded  the  statement  that  a  fairly  good 
pedestrian  could  walk  from  Maine  to  Ore 
gon  in  so  and  so  many  weeks,  he  would 
have  been  ready  to  perform  the  feat  for 
the  sake  of  the  argument.  Luckily,  that 
particular  question  never  came  up,  for  we 
should  have  missed  John  badly  at  the 
Pow-wow.  Pretty  good  name  for  a  de 
bating  club,  by  the  way.  Harry  Flint 
christened  it.  Flint  is  a  capital  fellow, 
only  he  insists  upon  making  puns,  and 
his  are  so  much  better  than  anything 
anybody  else  can  do  in  that  line,  that  we 
find  them  rather  a  bore. 

One  night,  at  the  Pow-wow,  Hanley 


Gbe 


had  read  a  paper  on  Civil- Service  Reform, 
and  a  very  able  paper  it  was  too.  But  the 
discussion  which  was  in  order  was  inclined 
to  flag,  owing  to  our  all  being  of  pretty 
much  the  same  opinion.  BHis  tried  to 
recall  some  heresy  of  Daniel  Webster's 
on  the  subject,  which  he  thought  might 
stir  us  up  a  little,  but  there  was  n't  any 
real  "  go  "  to  the  talk,  and  we  drifted  off 
onto  side  issues.  Ballot  reform,  which  is 
Manning's  hobby,  led  to  English  meth 
ods  of  election,  old  and  new,  and  then 
somebody  struck  Felix  Holt,  which  natu 
rally  brought  the  talk  round  to  George 
Eliot.  One  of  the  fellows  remarked  that 
it  was  odd  that  so  many  women  had 
chosen  a  man's  name  for  a  nom-de- 
plume,  but  Percy  Kent  said  it  was  natu 
ral  enough,  since  a  book  got  a  better 
hearing  if  it  was  supposed  to  be  written 
by  a  man. 

' '  Nonsense  ! ' '  exclaimed  Brunt.  ' '  A 
book  's  a  book,  and  stands  for  itself!  If 
it 's  a  woman  that 's  written  a  good  book, 
all  the  better  for  the  book  1 ' ' 


Xfterarg  Courtsbfp 


"  If  that  is  so,  "  Kent  answered,  "  it  is 
mighty  queer  that  so  many  of  the  best 
heads  among  the  women  should  have 
chosen  to  take  a  man's  name.  " 

"A  man's  name  is  a  more  effectual 
concealment,  "  Brunt  maintained. 

"Then  why  don't  men  sometimes  do 
the  same  thing  for  the  sake  of  conceal 
ment?  Why  did  n't  Dickens  call  him 
self  Ruth  instead  of  Boz  ?  Why  did  n't 
Samuel  Clemens  pass  himself  off  as  Mary 
Twain  ?  Why  were  not  the  ' '  Sonnets  of 
Proteus ' '  called  the  sonnets  of  lo  or 
Persephone  or  some  other  classic  girl, 
just  as  changeable,  I  warrant  you,  as 
Proteus  ever  was  ?  ' ' 

' '  Because  the  author  was  not  as  mud 
dled  in  his  mythology  as  you  are,  Kent  ! ' ' 

"  Poh  !  My  mythology  is  miles  ahead 
of  your  logic,  Brunt.  There  's  a  reason 
in  things,  and  Currer  Bell,  and  George 
Sand,  and  George  Eliot  knew  what  they 
were  about — you  may  depend  upon  it !  " 

Singularly  enough,  we  found  this  a 
much  more  fruitful  theme  than  civil-ser- 


vice  reform,  and  there  were  lots  of  good 
things  said  before  we  got  through  with  it. 
I  don't  repeat  them,  for  two  reasons.  In 
the  first  place,  I  have  noticed  that  what 
we  fellows  say  at  the  Pow-wow  never 
sounds  as  clever  by  half  when  you  try  to 
repeat  it.  In  the  second  place,  it  all  hap 
pened  some  time  ago  and  I  have  forgotten 
the  best  points.  But  I  remember  that 
everybody  had  something  to  say  on  the 
subject.  Brunt  got  much  wrought  up, 
because  he  could  not  lay  his  hand  on  any 
proof  of  his  assertion,  that  it  was  rather 
an  advantage  to  a  book  than  otherwise, 
to  have  been  written  by  a  woman.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  a  look  in  Brunt's  eye 
that  I  knew  better  than  anyone  else — 
for  Brunt  and  I  are  old  college  chums, 
and  I  know  him  like  a  book,  though  he 
would  n't  thank  me  for  saying  so — if  it 
had  n't  been  for  that  look  in  his  eye  I 
might  have  forgotten  all  about  that  par 
ticular  Pow-wow. 


n. 


THE  NOM-DE-PUJME. 

T  OHN  was  working  like  a  tiger  for  the 
^  next  six  months  or  more,  and  we  all 
wondered  what  he  was  at.  But  he  hates 
to  be  pumped,  and  is  always  mighty  close 
about  his  writing.  We  have  an  idea  that 
he  begins  things  and  does  not  finish  them. 
He  is  fastidious,  and  he  does  not  turn  out 
as  much  work  as  you  would  expect  from 
the  ease  with  which  he  seems  to  write. 

One  evening  the  following  January  I 
happened  in  on  John,  and  found  him  sit- 


ting  in  front  of  a  fine  old  fire,  smoking  his 
pet  pipe  and  clutching  a  very  fat  manu 
script.  Uncommonly  cosey  quarters  he 
used  to  have.  I  never  could  see  why  a 
fellow  like  Brunt  should  want  to  get 
married  and  give  up  all  the  comforts  of 
life.  Things  can  never  be  the  same  again. 
It 's  sure  to  spoil  half  the  fun, — especially 
for  your  bachelor  friends.  In  my  mind, 
at  least,  women  are  always  associated 
with  swallow-tail  coats  and  sweet  wine, 
and  expensive  ash-trays  on  queer  little 
legs,  that  break  if  you  look  at  them. 

Women  are  well  enough,  of  course,  in 
their  place — within  their  limitations,  as 
the  wiseacres  say.  At  balls,  for  instance, 
or  at  dinner  parties,  they  are  very  good 
company.  At  a  ball,  especially,  one 
would  always  wish  to  see  them.  It  'snot 
much  fun  dancing  with  another  fellow, 
even  when  he  ties  a  handkerchief  round 
his  arm  and  dances  "lady."  But  in  a 
man's  own  house  they  always  seem  a  little 
in  the  way. 

To  return  to  John  and  his  den.     It  did 


fciterarg  Courtsbfp 


look  pleasant  there  when  I  stepped  in  on 
that  cold  evening  and  found  that  great 
fire  burning  and  the  air  fragrant  with  pipe 
smoke,  and  John,  all  by  himself,  hanging 
on  to  his  manuscript  as  though  he  were 
afraid  it  might  get  away. 

"  Hullo,  Jack,"  said  I. 

"  Hullo,  Dick,"  said  he,  with  a  pleased 
sort  of  grin.  "  You  're  just  the  fellow  I 
was  wanting  to  see." 

Now  if  there  is  .anything  that  makes  a 
man  feel  good  it  is  that  kind  of  a  welcome. 
So  different  from  the  way  a  woman  sticks 
out  her  hand,  and  says,  "  Very  happy  to 
see  you,  Mr.  Dickson."  Not  that  that  is 
such  a  bad  thing  to  hear  either,  only  you 
know  they  will  say  it  just  the  same 
whether  they  mean  it  or  not. 

Well,  I  saw  that  I  had  come  in  the  nick 
of  time.  I  knew  by  the  way  John  clutched 
his  manuscript  that  it  was  finished,  and 
by  the  way  he  said  ' '  Hullo  ' '  that  he 
meant  to  tell  me  all  about  it.  So  I  sat 
down  and  lighted  my  pipe  and  waited  for 
him  to  begin. 


"Well,  Dick,  I  've  finished  my  novel.  " 

My  real  name,  by  the  way,  is  Francis 
Dickson,  though  many  people  suppose  it 
to  be  Richard  from  the  fellows  calling  me 
Dick.  Rather  an  annoying  mistake,  for 
I  was  named  after  my  uncle  the  General, 
and  not  being  distinguished  myself,  I  am 
unwilling  to  lose  any  reflected  glory. 
However,  I  was  not  so  egotistical  as  to  be 
thinking  of  that  when  John  told  me  about 
his  novel. 

"  Glad  to  hear  it,  "  said  I,  as  though  I 
had  been  in  the  secret  all  along.  ' '  What 
is  it  about  ?  ' ' 

"  Oh,  all  kinds  of  things.  " 

"  What  is  it  called  ?" 

"Spoils." 

' '  Good  title  !  And  with  your  name  on 
the  title-page  it  will  go  off  like  hot  cakes. ' ' 

"Ah!  But  that  is  just  the  point.  My 
name  is  not  to  be  on  the  title-page." 

"  Not  on  the  title-page  ?  What  is  the 
reason  of  that  ?  ' ' 

"  Well,  in  order  to  start  fair  without 
any  preconceived  ideas  on  the  part  of  the 


xo  a  Xiterarg  Courtsbfp 


public.  I  don't  propose  to  sell  my  novel 
on  the  strength  of  Louis  XI.  or  The 
South  Pole.  I  want  the  public  to  be 
unbiassed.  Then  besides,  "  he  added, 
after  a  pause,  ' '  I  am  going  to  try  an  ex 
periment.  " 

There  was  a  look  in  his  eye  which  sud 
denly  reminded  me  of  that  talk  at  the 
Pow-wow.  Was  it  possible  that  John  had 
written  a  novel  for  the  purpose  of  clinch 
ing  an  argument  ?  Nothing  could  have 
been,  after  all,  more  in  character.  But  I 
curbed  my  curiosity  and  amusement,  and 
asked,  innocently  enough  :  "  Have  you 
chosen  your  nom-de-plume  ?  ' ' 

"  Yes,  just  about.  I  am  going  to  use 
a  woman's  name." 

"  You  don't  say  so  !  And  what  is  the 
name?  " 

"  Well,  I  have  had  several  in  mind.  1 
should  like  to  know  what  you  think  of— 
here  he  fixed  me  with  his  eye,  as  though 
he  had  been  taking  aim,  and  said,  with 
a  lingering  emphasis — "Lilian  Leslie 
Lamb"? 


I  still  kept  my  countenance,  though 
with  difficulty.  There  sat  John,  great 
strapping  fellow,  with  his  sunburnt  face 
and  sandy  moustache,  his  strong,  pro 
nounced  features  and  keen  eyes,  the  typi 
cal  camper-out  and  club  man,  and  in  his 
great  deep  bass  voice  he  was  proposing  to 
call  himself  Lilian  Leslie  Lamb  ! 

He,  meanwhile,  did  not  seem  to  see  the 
humor  of  the  thing. 

"Lilian  Leslie  Lamb"  he  repeated, 
weighing  the  words  with  evident  satis 
faction.  "  It  is  striking,  it  is  alliterative, 
and  it  is  intensely  feminine.  Moreover, 
the  name  might  perfectly  well  be  genuine. 
I  once  knew  a  girl  named  Mary  M 
Morse.  I  always  had  a  notion  that  the 
middle  initial  stood  for  Morris.  Mary 
Morris  Morse !  That  is  very  much  the 
same  kind  of  name,  only  I  think  mine  is 
prettier,  don't  you  ?  " 

This  self-complacency  was  the  finishing 
touch.  I  put  my  head  back  and  roared, 
and  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  Jack  seemed  to 
see  the  joke,  and  he  struck  his  knee  and 


12  H  ILiterarg  Courtsbfp 


roared  too.  I  declare!  We  hadn't  had 
such  a  laugh  since  the  day  Old  Hobbins 
forgot  his  wig. 

Well,  when  we  had  got  pretty  well 
shaken  up,  we  quieted  down  again,  and 
talked  the  matter  over  soberly.  That  is, 
by  spells.  For  every  little  while  the  ab 
surdity  of  the  thing  would  come  over  me 
and  off  I  would  go  again.  Brunt  was 
good-natured  about  it,  though  he  didn't 
always  join  in.  First  of  all,  he  swore  me 
to  secrecy.  He  did  not  want  any  half 
way  work,  he  said.  He  was  going  to 
give  his  experiment  a  fair  trial.  He 
thought  he  had  written  a  good  novel ;  and 
that  settled  the  question  in  my  mind,  for 
John  was  always  harder  to  please  than  his 
readers.  He  said  that  if  the  book  should 
be  a  failure  or  even  a  half  success,  he 
should  be  free  to  admit  that  it  was  owing 
to  the  woman's  name.  He  proposed  send 
ing  it  to  the  Sandersons.  Bates  &  Bram- 
ford  knew  his  hand,  which  might  betray 
his  identity,  and  then  he  thought  novels 
more  in  the  Sandersons'  line. 


•Rom=De=lMume  13 


' '  What !  "  I  cried.  ' '  You  ' re  not  even 
going  to  let  your  publishers  into  the 
secret?  Supposing  they  reject  it.  " 

' '  Poh  !  Publishers  are  not  such  fools 
as  people  think.  The  Sandersons  know 
a  good  thing  when  they  see  it,  and  that 
novel  is  a  good  one,  I  can  tell  }TOU  that  to 
begin  with.  " 

He  then  gave  me  the  outlines  of  the 
plot,  which  was  a  strong  one,  and  we  sat 
talking  things  over  till  nearly  breakfast 
time.  Jove  !  Those  were  good  old  times. 
I  often  wish  them  back. 


III. 

THE  OTHER  UUAN. 

'"THE  Sandersons  were  ready  enough  to 
accept  the  novel,  and  it  was  not  long 
before  the  proof-sheets  were  arriving  at 
my  office  addressed  to  Miss  Lilian  I/eslie 
L,amb,  care  of  F.  Dickson,  Esq. 

Everything  went  on  swimmingly,  and 
Spoils  was  published  in  time  for  the  spring 
and  summer  trade.  It  made  an  enormous 
hit,  as  every  one  knows.  There  was  a 
second  edition  out  in  no  time,  and  the 
third  and  fourth  were  nearly  simul 
taneous.  It  was  republished  in  England, 


Gbe  ©tber  Hiltan  15 


and  a  handsome  ' '  consideration  ' '  remit 
ted  to  the  author. 

Brunt  was  pleased,  of  course.  Who 
could  have  helped  being  pleased  ?  He 
was  used  to  success,  but  not  to  this  kind 
of  success.  His  Louis  XI.  and  his  essays 
had  given  him  an  enviable  reputation, 
but  the  public  does  not  buy  histories  and 
essays  by  the  bushel,  and  Brunt  had  never 
made  such  a  brilliant  dash  at  fame  before. 

And,  after  all,  I  do  believe  that  what 
pleased  John  more  than  anything  else  was 
the  fact  that  he  had  proved  himself  in  the 
right.  The  woman's  name  had  certainly 
not  hindered  the  success  of  the  book.  He 
and  I  were  both  convinced  that  it  had 
actually  helped  the  sale.  All  the  critics 
dwelt  upon  the  remarkable  power  of  the 
work,  its  "  virile  strength,"  its  "  incisive 
force,"  and  they  made  haste  to  add  that 
these  qualities  were  tempered  by  "true 
feminine  delicacy  of  feeling, ' '  and  ' '  nicety 
of  perception."  That  was  where  John 
chuckled.  He  made  a  collection  of  all 
the  reviews— a  thing  he  had  never  taken 


16  H  Xiterarg  Courtship 


the  trouble  to  do  with  his  other  books. 
In  that  whole  collection  there  were  only 
five  notices  which  contained  no  allusion 
to  feminine  perception  and  delicacy.  But 
he  most  of  all  prized  those  which  declared 
that  the  characters  were  drawn  with  an 
"  almost  masculine  power." 

It  was  ' '  nuts  ' '  to  us,  you  may  be  sure. 
Yet  I  used  to  wonder  that  he  could  keep 
the  secret.  Glory  is,  after  all,  a  thing  a 
man  is  not  likely  to  get  too  much  of.  But 
there  was  one  thing  that  Brunt  liked  even 
better  than  glory,  and  that  was,  to  prove 
his  point. 

"But  you  have  proved  your  point 
now,"  I  urged,  when  the  newspapers  were 
fairly  crackling  with  praise.  "  Do  let  us 
tell  the  fellows  at  the  Pow-wow,  at  least." 

"Not  yet,"  he  answered,  with  quiet 
determination. 

"Don't  you  mean  ever  to  let  them 
know  ? "  I  asked  ;  for  I  was  perfectly 
flabbergasted  at  his  indifference. 

"  Oh,  yes  !     Some  time  or  other." 

"  But,  great  Scott !  when  ?  " 


©tber  Xilian  17 


"Well,"  lie  answered,  thoughtfully, 
' '  I  shall  wait  for  the  twentieth  edition, 
and  then  see  how  I  feel." 

I  ought  to  have  said  before,  that  one  of 
the  most  amusing  features  of  the  affair,  in 
its  early  stages,  was  the  letters  which 
' '  Miss  I^amb  ' '  received  through  her  pub 
lishers.  The  Sandersons  had  been  re 
quested  not  to  reveal  the  address  of  the 
new  writer,  by  which  means  I  was  saved 
a  good  deal  of  bother.  That  is,  the  San 
dersons  forwarded  the  letters  to  my  office, 
and  no  one  else  associated  my  name  in 
the  remotest  degree  with  the  famous  au 
thoress. 

At  first,  as  I  said,  the  letters  were  im 
mensely  entertaining.  No  matter  how 
commonplace  or  impertinent  or  high-flown 
they  might  be,  they  always  served  to 
heighten  the  humor  of  the  situation.  In 
fact  the  best  of  them — and  there  were 
some  among  them  which  any  author 
might  have  been  proud  to  receive — the  best 
of  them  could  hardly  be  so  sensible  or  so 
well-conceived  as  to  escape  some  striking 


is  B  XiterarB  Courtsbip 


incongruity.  At  one  time  we  got  into  such 
a.  chronic  state  of  amusement  that  we 
grinned  when  we  did  n't  mean  to,  and  the 
fellows  asked  us  "  What  's  the  joke  ?  " 

One  pouring  rainy  day  Brunt  came  into 
my  office,  and  instead  of  sitting  down 
comfortably  he  went  and  drummed  on  the 
window  pane,  gazing  down  on  the  um 
brellas  below,  as  though  they  had  been 
a  garden  of  jacqueminot  roses.  I  knew 
there  was  something  to  pay,  so  when  I 
got  tired  of  waiting  I  sang  out  :  "  I^et  's 
have  it,  Johnny." 

I  wanted  to  call  him  Lilian  at  first,  but 
he  shut  down  on  that.  He  had  a  notion 
I  might  forget  myself.  The  fact  is,  he 
was  afraid  as  a  thief  of  being  found  out. 

"Oh,  it  's  nothing  at  all,"  he  said, 
coming  over  and  sitting  down  in  the  chair 
I  keep  for  my  clients.  I  used  to  hate  that 
chair,  for  after  I  had  had  it  several  years 
it  looked  as  good  as  new.  Even  now  it  is 
in  better  repair  than  it  ought  to  be.  There 
are  too  many  men  practising  law  in  New 
York. 


©tber  XiUan  19 


Well,  then  Johnny  pulled  a  letter  out 
of  his  pocket,  one  I  had  sent  around  to 
him  the  evening  before,  and  handing  it  to 
me,  said  :  ' '  Read  that. ' ' 

The  hand  was  a  lady's,  and  had  the 
unusual  advantage  of  being  both  stylish 
and  legible.  The  letter  was  dated  at 
Colorado  Springs,  and  ran  as  follows  : 

"  MY  DEAR  Miss  LAMB  : 

"  A  glance  at  my  signature  may  serve  as  a  par 
tial  excuse  for  the  liberty  I  am  taking  in  writing 
to  you.  If  it  were  not  for  the  coincidence  in  our 
names,  I  should  know  better  than  to  trouble  you 
even  with  an  expression  of  the  very  great  pleas 
ure  which  your  novel  has  given  me.  For  there 
must  be  literally  thousands  who  have  enjoyed 
that  remarkable  book,  and  it  would  be  a  poor 
return  to  you  were  we  to  besiege  you  with 
letters. 

"  Your  name  and  mine,  as  you  will  observe, 
are  identical,  and  my  aunt,  Mrs.  Ellerton,  who 
takes  a  special  interest  in  genealogy,  is  con 
vinced  that  you  are  a  long-lost  cousin.  Aside 
from  the  natural  pride  we  should  have  in  such  a 
connection,  my  aunt's  hobby — I  warned  her 
that  I  should  use  the  word — is  strong  enough  to 
give  the  keenest  zest  to  such  an  inquiry  as  she 


20  B  Xfterarg  Courtsbip 


bids  me  make,  even  were  the  bearer  of  our  family 
name  quite  unknown  to  fame. 

"  To  come  to  the  point.  My  quite  incalcul 
ably  great  grandfather  came  to  America  in  1625 
and  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  New  Haven 
colony.  His  wife  was  Lilian  Leslie,  and  the 
name  has  continued  in  the  family  in  each  suc 
ceeding  generation.  One  of  his  descendants, 
our  own  ancestor,  was  an  officer  in  the  colonial 
army,  and  fell  in  an  Indian  skirmish  ;  poor  boy  ! 
He  was  barely  twenty-one.  His  widow  seems  to 
have  been  too  much  engrossed  with  her  one 
child  to  have  fashed  herself  about  family  con 
nections,  whereby  she  unwittingly  incurred  the 
censure  of  posterity  as  represented  in  her  very 
great  granddaughter,  my  aunt.  For,  through 
her  indifference  to  these  vital  matters,  she 
appears  quite  to  have  lost  track  of  her  husband's 
only  brother,  William,  whom  my  aunt  persists 
in  considering  the  founder  of  a  collateral  branch. 
This  William,  being  at  the  time  unmarried,  re 
moved  to  New  York  State,  where  he  may,  for 
aught  we  know,  have  fallen  a  victim  to  the  Iro- 
quois  ;  though  my  aunt  is  unwilling  to  give  him 
up.  She  is  convinced  that  if  New  York  were 
not  such  a  large  State,  and  if  it  did  not  harbor  so 
many  Lambs,  and  if  those  hitherto  examined 
had  not  betrayed  such  astounding  ignorance  in 
the  matter  of  genealogy,  she  would  certainly 


©tber  XfUan  21 


have  discovered  valuable  cousins  before  this. 
As  it  is,  her  efforts  have  hitherto  been  fruitless, 
and  I  leave  you  to  imagine  her  joy  when  she 
suddenly  sees  the  possibility  of  success.  A  new 
Lamb  of  any  description  is  always  exhilarating, 
but  a  Lilian  Leslie  Lamb  exceeds  her  fondest 
hopes. 

' '  You  will  perhaps  be  interested  to  know  what 
manner  of  people  we  are.  I  am  happy  in  being 
able  to  assure  you  that  we  are  extremely  respect 
able,  crime  and  abject  poverty  being  alike 
unknown  among  us.  The  conventional  black 
sheep  has  appeared  occasionally  within  our  fold 
and  has  been  prayed  over  or  disowned  accord 
ing  to  the  temper  of  his  immediate  victims.  As 
a  family  we  run  to  the  ministry,  though  one 
judge,  a  generation  back,  and  a  plucky  young 
colonel,  who  was  killed  in  the  war  of  the  Rebel 
lion,  form  a  picturesque  variation.  A  less  pic 
turesque  variation  occurred  in  the  person  of  my 
own  father,  who  went  into  copper.  As  he  spent 
most  of  his  time  in  the  West,  and  died  when  I 
was  a  child,  I  never  saw  much  of  him.  Indeed 
I  have  no  near  relatives  besides  my  aunt,  and  I 
am  free  to  confess  that  I  should  value  a  new 
cousin  highly.  I  ought  to  add,  in  view  of  your 
talents,  that  neither  my  aunt  nor  I  boasts  a 
shadow  of  one.  In  fact,  we  are  very  common 
place  sort  of  people.  After  this  admission  will 


22  B  Xftcrarg  Courtsbip 


you  still  investigate  the  ease  as  far  as  may  be 
perfectly  convenient  ?  I  am  assuming  that  you 
have  not,  up  to  this  time,  occupied  yourself  very 
much  with  family  trees.  And  indeed  it  seems 
hardly  possible  that  any  one  woman  should 
have  the  taste  and  capacity  for  both  genealogy 
and  literature.  My  aunt,  at  least,  has  not. 

"  Are  there,  then,  any  traditions  in  your  family 
which  point  to  an  ancestor  migrating  from  New 
Haven  to  New  York  in  the  seventeenth  century  ? 
Do  you  know  how  far  back  the  Leslie  in  your 
name  dates  ?  Also,  are  Henrys  and  Williams 
prevalent  in  your  family  ?  My  ancestor  was  a 
Henry.  Have  you  any  instances  of  dark  hair 
with  blue  eyes  ?  That  combination  has  been 
frequent  among  us.  And,  oh  !  one  thing  more  ! 
You  don't  happen  to  know  of  a  stray  malachite 
ear-ring  among  your  people  ?  My  aunt  treasures 
a  hideous  one  of  pre-historic  date,  and  fondly 
hopes  to  discover  its  mate  in  the  New  York 
branch.  Though  why  William  Lamb  should 
have  carried  off  an  odd  ear-ring,  and  one  of 
such  extraordinary  ugliness,  to  boot,  is  not  quite 
clear  to  my  mind. 

"  I  believe  I  am  writing  rather  at  random,  for 
I  cannot  imagine  your  reading  as  far  as  this. 
But  being  under  bonds  to  my  aunt  to  tell  the 
whole  story,  I  could  not,  in  conscience,  make 
the  letter  shorter.  I  will  offer  no  apologies,  but 


Gbe  ©tber  Xiltan  23 


leave  you  to  make  due  allowance  for  the  effect 
of  a  famous  name  upou  an  obscure  person.     So 
many  people  have  actually  asked  me  whether  I 
wrote  Spoils  that  my  respect  for  the  judgment  of 
my  fellow-creatures  has  perceptibly  fallen. 
"  I  remain,  dear  Miss  Lamb, 
"  Very  sincerely, 

"Your  would-be  cousin, 

"  LILIAN  LESLIE  LAMB." 

"Well,  Jack,"  I  said  when  I  had 
finished  the  perusal  of  this  interesting 
communication,  "  what  are  you  going 
to  do  about  it  ?  " 

"That  is  just  the  question." 

' '  You  might  keep  up  the  correspond 
ence." 

"  Francis  Dickson,  you  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  yourself,"  cried  John,  with  so 
much  warmth,  that  I  was  convinced  that 
he  had  had  the  same  idea  himself,  and 
that  that  was  why  he  seemed  so  out  of 
sorts.  Brunt  has  always  had  the  impulses 
of  a  Bohemian,  together  with  the  charac 
ter  of  a  gentleman,  and  they  sometimes 
conflict. 

I  knew  that  nothing   could  entertain 


24  &  XiterarB  Courteblp 


him  more  than  a  correspondence  such  as 
he  might  perfectly  well  have  carried  on 
with  this  young  lady,  and  no  one  ever  the 
wiser,  and  it  did  seem  such  a  pity  to  lose 
the  fun,  that  I  stood  up  for  my  suggestion 
with  some  spirit.  It  may  be  that,  under 
lying  my  evil  counsels,  there  was  a  con 
fidence  in  John's  invulnerability  which 
caused  the  role  of  tempter  to  sit  lightly 
upon  my  conscience.  At  any  rate,  I  said, 
with  that  dignity  with  which,  under 
certain  circumstances,  even  a  worm  will 
turn  :  "I  fail  to  see  that  I  have  said  any 
thing  to  be  ashamed  of,  John  Brunt,  and 
I  '11  thank  you  to  treat  my  suggestions  a 
little  less  cavalierly. ' ' 

Then,  thinking  I  had  vindicated  my 
claims  to  respect,  I  went  on,  more  pleas 
antly  :  "Come,  John,  let  us  talk  the 
thing  over  sensibly.  Here  is  this  young 
lady,  evidently  a  clever,  wide-awake  per 
son,  stranded  in  that  heathenish  West 
of  ours,  with  probably  not  the  shadow 
of  intellectual  stimulus  or  congenial 
companionship. ' ' 


tTbc  ©tbcr  Xilian  25 


As  I  talked,  each  statement  that  I 
made  was  so  convincing  to  myself  that 
I  seemed  to  come  rapidly  into  possession 
of  facts  on  the  subject  hitherto  unknown 
to  me. 

"  I  really  don't  suppose,  John,  that  she 
has  a  being  to  speak  to  but  that  old  crank 
of  an  aunt,  with  her  family  trees  and  mala 
chite  ear-rings.  ' ' 

"She  has  but  one  of  the  ear-rings, 
Dicky." 

' '  Oh  !  she  has  got  the  other  one  on  the 
brain,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing, ' ' 
said  I,  for  I  had  no  idea  of  being  so  easily 
put  down. 

' '  Go  ahead  ! ' '  said  John.  ' '  Go  ahead ! 
Only  I  can't  help  wondering  where  you 
learned  so  much  about  the  family." 

"  My  dear  boy,"  I  answered,  quite  con 
descendingly,  ' '  I  am  blessed  with  average 
intelligence — that  is  all.  Now,  here  is 
this  poor  girl,  without  a  single  interest  in 
life,  utterly  cut  off  from  the  great  world 
which  is  teeming  with — ' ' 

' '  Hold  on  I  "  cried  John.     ' '  You  seem 


H  Xiterarg  Courtsfeip 


to  forget  that  she  has  read  Spoils.  She 
can't  starve  on  that." 

"  Yes,  and  evidently  it  has  been  an 
epoch  in  her  life,"  I  hastened  to  say. 
"  Then  think  how  much  more  inspiring 
would  be  a  correspondence  with  the 
author  of  this  Great  Work."  I  found 
myself  speaking  in  capital  letters.  But 
John  did  not  seem  particularly  impressed. 

' '  And  so  you  would  advise  me  to  pass 
myself  off  for  a  woman  in  a  correspond 
ence  with  a  young  lady  ?  ' ' 

"  And  why  not?  She  is  not  likely  to 
unbosom  herself  to  a  total  stranger,  man 
or  woman.  She  won't  talk  of  her  private 
affairs  in  such  letters.  And,  after  all,  when 
it  comes  to  the  point,  you  are  a  gentle 
man,  a  man  of  the  world,  and  a  great 
author.  You  will  be  giving  her  gold 
when  she  is  looking  for  silver.  There  is 
no  robbery  in  that." 

Anybody  else  would  have  been  rather 
struck  by  my  metaphor.  I  was  myself. 
But,  bless  you,  Brunt  does  n't  care  any 
thing  about  metaphors.  He  can  reel  them 


<S>tber  XiHan  27 


off  by  the  yard.  Why,  in  his  essay  on 
' '  Small  Change  ' '  in  the  Wherewithal 
Series,  they  're  as  thick  as  spatters.  The 
very  title  is  a  metaphor,  and  he  does  not 
make  any  more  of  them  than  a  carpenter 
does  of  shavings. 

I  talked  on  in  this  strain  for  some  time, 
till  at  last  John  burst  out  with  a  fine  dis 
play  of  impatience. 

' '  Don't  talk  bosh  any  more,  Dick.  I  'm 
going  to  write  my  answer  and  be  done 
with  it.  Come,  get  out  of  that !  "  With 
which  he  coolly  turned  me  out  of  my  own 
chair,  and  sat  down  at  my  desk,  where  he 
immediately  fell  to  scratching  away  for 
dear  life. 

"  I  hope  the  other  Lilian  has  better 
manners  than  you,"  I  remarked,  but  I 
am  afraid  it  was  lost  upon  him. 

Before  he  got  through  the  rascal  had 
torn  up  three  or  four  sheets  of  my  best 
Crane's  Distaff  note-paper,  to  which  he 
was  helping  himself,  with  admirable  as 
surance.  Not  that  I  minded  the  paper, 
though  writing  paper  does  happen  to  be 


28  B  XtterarE  Courtsbip 


my  pet  economy.  I  suppose  everybody 
nas  one.  John's,  by  the  way,  is  matches. 
But  it  was  so  unusual  to  see  John  make 
a  mess  of  a  letter  that  it  amused  me. 

At  last  he  wheeled  around  and  held  out 
the  following  specimen  of  epistolary  art : 

"Mv  DEAR  Miss  LAMB  : 

"  Your  kind  and  cousinly  letter  is  just  at  hand, 
and  it  is  with  genuine  regret  that  I  find  myself 
obliged  to  disclaim  a  relationship  which  I  should 
be  proud  to  own.  I  fear  your  aunt  Mrs.  Eller- 
ton  will  think  me  the  most  unprincipled  of 
women  when  I  confess  that  the  name  which 
graces  the  title-page  of  my  book  is  only  a  noin- 
de-plume,  selected  on  account  of  its  smooth  and 
flowing  qualities.  It  had  not  occurred  to  me 
that  a  signature  chosen  and  combined  for  purely 
aesthetic  reasons,  might  already  exist,  as  a  fam 
ily  name,  and  I  can  only  offer  my  sincere  apolo 
gies  to  you  for  the  liberty  I  have  unwittingly 
taken.  Meanwhile  I  cannot  wholly  regret  a 
misunderstanding  to  which  I  owe  the  welcome 
assurance  that  my  book  has  pleased  you.  Un 
known  to  me  as  you  are,  your  letter  convinces 
me  that  you  are  one  whose  approval  I  should 
value. 

"Allow  me  to  add,  that,  as  it  is  my  earnest 
wish  to  preserve  a  complete  incognito,  my  pub- 


©tber  !!LiIian  29 


lishers  themselves  not  being  aware  that  my 
name  is  assumed,  I  shall  rely  upon  your  be 
traying  only  to  your  aunt,  the  fact  that  I  am 
sailing  under  false  colors. 

"  Under  which  circumstances,  it  is  with  un 
feigned  contrition  that  I  continue  to  sign  my 
self, 

"Though  most  sincerely  yours, 

"  LILIAN  LESWE  I/AMB." 


"  How  's  that  ?  '  '  asked  John,  who  had 
been  drumming  the  table  during  my 
thoughtful  perusal  of  the  letter. 

'  '  I  should  think  that  would  settle  the 
matter,"  said  I. 

'  '  What  do  you  mean  ?  '  ' 

'  '  I  don't  think  you  will  hear  from  them 
again." 

"  It  does  n't  sound  rude,  I  hope." 

"  Rude  !  Quite  the  contrary.  In  fact 
I  think  it  sounds  a  little  chivalrous  for  a 
woman.  But  they  won't  suspect  any 
thing.  And  anyhow  you  certainly  have 
not  left  the  sign  of  an  opening  for  another 
letter." 

1  '  How  about  the  handwriting  ?  '  ' 

"That  smallish  literary  hand  has  n't 


30  a  Xiteran?  Couttsbip 


any  gender.  Besides,  I  don't  know 
whether  you  meant  to  or  not,  but 
you  've  minced  your  writing  out  of  all 
nature." 

"  That 's  so,"  said  he.  "  But  I  did  it 
without  thinking. ' ' 

He  seemed  somewhat  depressed,  but 
he  sealed  the  letter — with  my  crest,  by 
the  way, — and  after  he  had  put  it  into 
the  bag  for  the  office  boy  to  post,  he 
cheered  up  and  I  supposed  he  would  for 
get  all  about  it. 


IV. 

POEMS,    BY  JOVE  ! 

T  HAVE  often  speculated  as  to  why 
*  Brunt  had  so  much  feeling  about  that 
letter.  I  never  felt  quite  sure  whether  it 
was  the  handwriting  or  only  Fate.  As 
nearly  everything  in  the  world  is  Fate, 
— everything,  at  least,  but  out  and  out 
pigheadedness — T  suppose  that  it  was  Fate 
that  did  it.  Still  John  was  always  a  lit 
tle  conceited  about  his  discrimination  in 
regard  to  handwriting,  and  Miss  Lamb's 
was  about  the  best  I  have  ever  seen.  It 


32  B  Xiterarg  Gourtsbip 


had  not  only  style  and  legibility,  but  un 
usual  individuality.  I  only  wish  I  could 
show  it  to  you,  but  naturally  I  have  not 
the  originals  of  her  letters. 

There  !  Now,  I  have  got  ahead  of  my 
story  !  For  I  had  meant  to  convey  the 
impression  at  this  point,  that  that  was  the 
end  of  the  correspondence,  as  I  am  sure 
it  ought  to  have  been.  I  was  intending 
to  go  on  and  give,  with  a  few  light 
touches,  a  sketch  of  Brunt  as  a  society 
man  ;  for  he  was  quite  stunning  when  he 
laid  himself  out,  and  I  did  not  know  but 
that  I  could  remember  some  of  the  hits 
he  made  at  the  Van  Deusenberg  dinner 
the  very  next  evening.  But  now  that 
you  know  the  correspondence  went  on, 
you  will,  of  course,  be  in  a  hurry  to  hear 
about  that,  and  you  will  not  want  to  be 
told  what  Brunt  was  saying  to  some  other 
girl  whom  you  are  not  interested  in.  I 
think  myself  that  a  story  is  always  a  bore 
when  it  interrupts  itself.  Only  I  wish 
you  had  been  at  the  dinner,  as  I  was, 
to  hear  the  discussion  on  Spoils.  A 


poems,  bg  Jove !  33 


hostess  would  have  been  mortified  to 
have  given  a  dinner  that  year,  in  the 
course  of  which  Spoils  did  not  get 
talked  about.  They  were  comparing  the 
book  with  something  of  Thackeray's, 
and  Brunt  would  not  hear  of  its  holding 
a  candle  to  Thackeray.  In  the  heat  of 
discussion,  he  said  such  severe  things 
about  the  new  novel  that  my  neighbor 
confided  to  me  that  it  only  showed  how 
jealous  all  the  men  were  of  Lilian  L,eslie 
lyamb  ! 

Three  weeks  elapsed  before  the  next  let 
ter  came,  and  it  was  much  more  of  a  sur 
prise  to  Brunt  and  me  than  it  can  possibly 
be  to  you,  since  you  are  prepared  for  it. 
The  letter  was  a  thick  one,  and  I  could 
hardly  wait  for  John  to  put  in  an  appear 
ance  at  my  office,  which  he  had  proposed 
doing  that  morning  as  he  was  expecting 
to  hear  from  the  Sandersons  in  regard  to  a 
ninth  edition.  I  knew  Miss  L,amb's  writ 
ing  directly,  of  course.  No  one  could 
ever  mistake  it.  Brunt  was  as  surprised 
as  I  had  counted  upon  his  being,  and  he 


34  S  Xitcrarc  Gourtsbtp 


let  the  Sandersons'  letter  wait  while  he 
opened  the  Colorado  one. 

"  Poems,  by  Jove  !  "  he  cried,  and  his 
face  fell.  "  Ten  to  one  they  're  trash." 

As  he  spoke  a  half-sheet  slipped  to  the 
floor  and  I  picked  it  up.  It  was  a  poem 
to  "  The  Solitary  Sandpiper,"  beginning  : 

"  Daintiest  spirit  of  the  wilderness, 
Prettiest  fancy  ever  taught  to  fly." 

I  thought  the  verses  mighty  good,  and 
I  was  pleased,  afterward,  when  I  found 
that  John  liked  them  too. 

"  Are  they  her  poems  ?  "  I  asked. 

"She  says  not,"  he  growled,  "but 
here,  I  will  read  you  what  she  writes." 
Which  he  proceeded  to  do,  with  occa 
sional  comments  thrown  in. 

The  letter  began,  "  My  dear  Miss 
I,amb,"  without  any  allusion  to  the  name 
being  assumed,  which  I  thought  in  very 
good  taste. 

The  letter  went  on  as  follows  : 

"How  you  will  regret  the  courtesy  with  which 
you  responded  to  my  first  letter,  when  you  find 


poems,  bg  3ox>e!  35 


that  it  has  brought  upon  you  another,  and  a  far 
more  troublesome  one.  I  can  imagine  your 
consternation  at  sight  of  the  enclosed  poems, 
and  I  am  well  aware  that  my  conduct  in  sending 
them  to  you  is  unjustifiable.  When  I  say  that 
I  am  sacrificing  your  convenience  on  the  altar 
of  a  friendship  of  my  own  it  will  hardly  seem 
to  mitigate  the  wrong.  Nevertheless,  I  throw 
myself  upon  your  mercy.  These  poems  are  the 
work  of  one  of  my  friends.  She  has  written 
them  from  time  to  time  in  years  past  as  a  con 
genial  exercise  of  her  faculties  rather  than 
from  any  more  ambitious  motive.  They  seem 
to  me  to  be  not  without  value.  My  judgment, 
to  be  sure,  does  not  count  for  much  ;  yet  hith 
erto  I  have  known  no  one  to  whom  I  was  will 
ing  to  submit  it  in  this  matter.  Bver  since 
your  letter  came  I  have  been  possessed  with  the 
desire  to  have  you  see  my  friend's  poems.  I 
speak  of  her  thus  impersonally,  in  considera 
tion  of  her  wish  to  conceal  her  identity, — a 
feeling  with  which  you,  my  dear  Miss  Lamb, 
must  surely  sympathize." 

At    this    point     the    reader    coughed 
slightly,  but  resumed  : 

"My  friend's  reticence  in  this  respect  is  due 
to  her  extreme  modesty —  " 

' '  Please  observe  that  she  does  not,  at 


36  a  ILfteran?  Courtebip 


this  point,  pursue  the  comparison,"  John 
remarked  in  parenthesis — 

"  to  her  extreme  modesty,  which  indeed  is 
so  fixed  that  it  partakes  of  the  nature  of  ob 
stinacy.  Yet  a  taste  of  success  would  certainly 
be  a  very  deep  gratification  to  one  whose  life 
has  made  her  more  familiar  with  disappoint 
ment  and  suffering  than  with  brighter  experi 
ences.  Will  you,  then,  do  me  the  favor  which 
I  ask  ?  Will  you  read  the  poems  I  send  you, 
and  then,  if  your  opinion  of  them  should  be 
favorable,  will  you  give  me  a  word  of  advice 
as  to  the  best  disposition  to  be  made  of  them? 
The  four  poems  enclosed  are,  I  think,  fairly 
representative  of  the  whole  collection.  I  am 
aware  that  we  cannot  expect  their  publication 
to  prove  a  lucrative  venture.  The  most  we 
hope  is,  that  they  may  pay  their  own  way. 
We  shall  not  look  for  an  immediate  reply. 
Should  you  be  so  good  as  to  accede  to  my 
request,  let  me  beg  you  to  do  so  at  such  time 
as  shall  render  the  service  least  burdensome 
to  you. 

"  Yours  very  sincerely, 

"  LILIAN  LESLIE  LAMB." 

"  Do  you  take  any  stock  in  the  friend, 
Jack?"  Tasked. 


poems,  bg  Jove!  37 


"  Not  much,"  said  he,  with  a  sceptical 
scowl. 

"  You  know  she  said  in  the  first  letter 
that  she  had  n't  any  talents." 

"She  said  she  didn't  boast  any." 

' '  Great  Scott !  Jack,  what  a  memory 
you  have  ! ' ' 

He  was  reading  the  poems  with  very 
respectful  interest  I  thought,  handing 
them  to  me  as  he  finished  them.  Besides 
the  "  Sandpiper,"  there  was  a  fanciful 
little  love  song,  a  sonnet  which  I  could  n't 
make  much  of,  and  the  "  Ballad  of  the 
Prairie  Schooner,"  which  has  since  be 
come  so  popular.  I  could  see  that  Brunt 
was  a  good  deal  impressed,  and  I  didn't 
wonder.  He  read  them  all  through  sev 
eral  times  and  then  he  read  the  letter 
again.  He  always  had  a  way  of  going 
on  j  ust  as  though  I  had  not  been  by,  which 
made  everything  very  free  and  easy  be 
tween  us. 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  them  ?  " 
I  asked,  when  he  had  had  time  to  take 
them  all  in. 


38  B  literary  Courtsbtp 


"I  think  them  good,"  said  he.  "If 
the  rest  average  as  high,  I  should  think 
they  might  stand  on  their  own  legs. ' ' 

' '  Shall  you  write  and  tell  her  so  ?  " 

' '  What  I  should  like  would  be  to  see 
the  lot.  But,  confound  it  !  that  would 
involve  a  regular  correspondence,  and  I 
should  feel  like  a  sneak  and  a  villain." 

"You  don't  want  to  make  a  clean 
breast  of  it?" 

"No,  I  don't,  "  he  answered  curtly. 

"  You  might  refer  her  to  your  friend, 
John  Brunt.  I  'm  sure  if  she  has  read 
your  essay  on  ' '  Verse  versus  Verse, ' ' 
she  will  have  confidence  in  your  judg 
ment." 

"  Not  such  a  bad  idea,  "  said  John. 

"An  uncommonly  good  idea,  if  you 
would  give  a  fellow  his  dues,"  said  I. 

"  The  handwriting  is  rather  a  hitch." 

"  Have  n't  you  got  a  fellow  copying  for 
you  somewhere?  Make  him  write  the 
Brunt  letters." 

"  He  can't  sign  for  me." 

' '  You  can  sign  for  yourself.     You  write 


poems,  bg  Jove!  39 


your  name  very  differently  from  anything 
else.  There  is  something  quite  reckless 
about  your  capital  'J,'  and  you  wouldn't 
give  Browning  or  Bismarck  such  a  genial 
'  B  '  as  you  put  into  Brunt." 

On  second  thoughts,  however,  he  con 
cluded  that  he  would  rather  risk  detection 
than  do  anything  so  roundabout  as  have 
an  amanuensis,  and,  after  much  consulta 
tion,  we  agreed  that  if  he  continued  to 
write  extra  small  in  his  character  as 
Miss  L,amb,  and  if  he  were  to  exaggerate 
his  own  hand  when  it  came  time  to 
assume  the  more  familiar  role  of  John 
Brunt,  there  would  be  nothing  to  excite 
suspicion.  And  events  justified  our  con 
fidence. 

In  his  next  letter,  John,  in  the  character 
of  Miss  L,amb,  asked  to  be  addressed, 

"  Care  of  F.  Dickson,  Esq.,  " 
which  I  thought  indicated  a  greater  im 
patience   to  receive  his  correspondent's 
future  letters  than  literary  people  usually 
feel  when  appealed  to  in  such  a  matter. 


V. 

HINTS  AND  GUESSES. 


TT  all  came  about  very  naturally  —  the 
correspondence  with  John,  I  mean. 
The  two  Miss  Lambs  agreed  to  turn  all 
the  manuscript  over  to  Mr.  Brunt,  and  in 
due  course  of  time  a  package  arrived,  the 
size  and  weight  of  which  would  certainly 
have  appalled  a  stouter  heart  than  mine. 
Brunt,  however,  received  it  without 
flinching,  and  set  to  work,  reading  the 
contents,  with  very  much  the  same  dogged 
vim  he  used  to  put  into  his  semi-an 
nual  ' '  cram  ' '  at  college.  Only  I  doubt 
whether  he  ever  found  his  Virgil  or  his 
Homer  as  interesting  reading  as  these 
latest  productions  of  the  modern  Muse. 


•feints  an&  Guesses  41 


His  good  opinion  of  the  poems  was,  on 
the  whole,  confirmed,  though  he  was 
rather  taken  aback  by  the  character  of 
some  of  them.  An  occasional  note  of 
bitterness  was  struck,  which  accorded  ill 
with  the  easy  tone  of  the  author's  letters 
—  the  author's  letters,  I  say,  for,  with 
the  best  intentions,  we  could  not  fail  to 
penetrate  the  thin  disguise  which  Miss 
Lamb  had  chosen  to  throw  about  her 
identity.  Happily,  the  misanthropic  ones 
were  of  inferior  merit,  so  that  Brunt  did 
not  think  it  best  to  include  them  in  the 
collection.  But,  as  he  said,  their  lack  of 
artistic  merit  simply  went  to  prove  that 
they  were  a  direct  expression  of  a  mood, 
which,  though  not  poetical,  was  all  the 
more  likely  to  be  real.  If  the  public 
knew  what  he  had  spared  them,  they 
would  be  eternally  grateful.  As  it  is,  I 
think  all  will  admit  that  those  pieces 
which  he  did  select  for  publication,  were 
well  worth  while.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  sonnet  called  "Knighted."  Any 
one  who  is  in  the  way  of  reading  poetry 


Xfterarg  Courtsbfp 


must  be  familiar  with  it.  It  is  the  only 
sonnet  I  ever  went  in  for,  but  I  think  it 
regularly  great.  John  says  it  's  not  one 
of  the  best  of  t~he  collection.  He  talks 
learnedly  about  the  last  two  lines  being  a 
couplet,  and  says  it  gives  the  poem  the 
flavor  of  an  epigram.  Flavor  of  fiddle 
sticks  !  I  say  it 's  mighty  good  poetry, 
and  most  any  fellow  would  like  to  have 
something  similar  written  in  honor  of 
him  / 

But  I  must  not  go  into  the  poems  too 
much,  for  they  are  open  to  every  one  now. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  John  found  a 
publisher  for  them.  He  usually  does 
what  he  sets  out  to  do,  and,  besides,  the 
things  only  needed  a  friendly  push  in  the 
beginning.  The  point  of  interest,  as  far 
as  we  are  concerned,  is  the  correspondence 
brought  about  by  them. 

Once  launched  in  a  straightforward  cor 
respondence  in  his  own  name,  Brunt  came 
out  strong,  and  he  conducted  it  with  such 
skill  as  to  draw  the  young  lady  out  on 
more  subjects  than  the  main  one.  His 


•feints  an&  (Buesses  43 


own  letters  would,  I  am  sure,  have  been 
a  mine  of  gold  to  any  one,  and  Miss  Lamb 
clearly  found  them  so.  As  he  proceeded 
to  toss  one  nugget  after  another  before 
her,  the  reserve  with  which  she  had 
entered  upon  the  correspondence — the 
correspondence  with  John  Brunt,  you 
understand — gradually  wore  off,  and  she 
began  sending  him  letters  which  were 
quite  up  to  those  she  received.  I  say  the 
reserve  wore  off,  by  which  I  mean  that 
she  began  writing  more  fully  upon  this  or 
that  topic  of  general  interest  which  John 
happened  to  broach  in  his  letters.  Yet 
when  her  correspondent  happened  upon 
any  subject  which  she  did  not  choose  to 
follow  up  she  could  be  as  evasive  as  the 
Sphinx.  Her  letters  to  John  were  singu 
larly  impersonal.  It  was  an  interesting 
study  to  note  the  difference  between  those 
and  the  ones  addressed  to  the  fictitious 
Miss  I,amb,  to  whom  she  occasionally 
wrote  to  report  progress.  The  letters  to 
John  were  longer  and  more  varied,  yet 
after  reading  a  short  note  to  "  Miss 


44  B  Xtterarg  Courtsbip 


Lamb  "  we  were  both  aware  of  having  got 
a  glimpse  of  the  writer's  personality,  such 
as  volumes  of  her  letters  to  John  would 
not  have  yielded. 

What  lent  an  added  zest  to  our  interest 
in  Miss  Iamb's  letters  was  the  skilful 
manoeuvres  by  which  the  writer  sought  to 
conceal  her  identity  with  the  author  of 
the  poems — or  again,  the  cool  and  imper 
sonal  tone  in  which  she  wrote  of  them. 
In  reference  to  a  set  of  L,ove  Sonnets 
which  John  thinks  particularly  good,  the 
"I/ove  Sonnets  of  Constance, "  she  wrote: 

' '  My  friend  was  averse  to  offering  these 
as  well  as  some  of  the  other  pieces  for 
publication  lest  they  should  be  thought  to 
be  autobiographical.  But  I  made  haste  to 
remind  her  that,  as  she  would  never  be 
identified  as  the  author,  it  could  make  no 
possible  difference  what  people  might 
think." 

"  If  that  is  n't  a  pretty  bit  of  defiance," 
John  said.  "  The  worst  of  it  is,  it  con 
vinces  me  that  the  poems  in  question  are 
autobiographical. ' ' 


t>tnts  and  ©nesses  45 


"  Why  '  the  worst  of  it,'  Jack  ?  What 
do  you  care  about  the  state  of  mind  of  a 
woman  you  never  set  eyes  upon  ?  ' ' 

"Oh,  I  don't  care,  of  course,  only — 
blighted  beings  are  not  in  my  line."  - 

But  this  particular  ' '  blighted  being  ' ' 
proved  to  be  very  much  in  his  line.  He 
was  just  the  man  to  feel  the  charm  of  a 
good  letter,  and,  furthermore,  he  could 
never  resist  the  fascination  of  an  unproved 
point.  We  assumed  that  she  was  the 
author  of  the  poems,  but  we  were  not  in 
possession  of  certainty  on  the  subject. 
Her  age  was  also  a  much  mooted  question 
until  we  were  lucky  enough  to  get  posi 
tive  evidence  on  that  point.  The  experi 
enced  tone  of  many  of  the  poems  had  led 
us  to  think  that  she  must  be  an  older 
woman  than  we  had  at  first  supposed,  but 
a  chance  conversation  with  Jim  Arnold, 
the  doctor,  cleared  that  up  for  us. 

It  happened  that  Arnold  dropped  in  at 
my  rooms  one  evening  and  found  Spoils 
lying  on  the  table.  I  had  been  looking 
it  through,  as  I  often  do  to  this  day. 


46  H  Xfterarg  Gourtsbip 


The  beauty  of  Spoils  is  that  it  is  such 
good  reading  !  Arnold's  eye  happened 
to  fall  upon  it,  and  he  said  he  had  often 
wondered  whether  its  author  might  not 
be  the  Lilian  Lamb  he  had  known  as  a 
child,  years  ago  when  he  was  visiting  in 
Connecticut. 

' '  I  was  staying  with  one  of  my  class 
mates,"  he  said,  "  whose  father's  country 
place  adjoined  that  of  Mr.  Louis  Kllerton, 
a  man  who  owned  good  horses.  This 
Lilian  Lamb  was  a  niece  of  the  Kller- 
tons,  a  small  child  in  a  long-sleeved 
gingham  apron,  who  was  forever  riding 
horseback  on  the  branches  of  an  old  ap 
ple  tree  behind  the  house.  One  day  her 
aged  steed  gave  way,  and  down  she 
tumbled  with  a  broken  arm.  The  village 
doctor  was  non  est  cumatibus,  and  I  was 
called  in  to  set  the  arm.  I  was  a  green 
hand  and  had  n't  got  my  surgical  nerves 
in  training.  I  thought  the  child  would 
scream,  and  I  was  scared  blue.  It  was 
a  hateful  fracture  and  it  must  have  hurt 
atrociously.  But  the  little  thing  bore  it 


t>tnts  and  Ouesses  47 


like  a  soldier,  and  when  I  got  through 
she  said,  '  Thank  you,  Doctor,'  with  the 
sweetest  little  quaver  of  a  smile.  You 
don't  often  see  a  girl  of  seven  or  eight 
with  the  pluck  of  a  soldier  and  the  man 
ners  of  a  lady.  A  thing  like  that  shows 
brains  as  well  as  nerves,  and  I  would  give 
a  good  deal  to  know  whether  she  wrote 
Spoils." 

I  did  not  volunteer  any  information  on 
the  subject.  I  was  occupied  with  a  sim 
ple  sum  in  addition,  by  means  of  which  I 
discovered  that  Miss  I^amb  could  not  then 
be  more  than  twenty-five  years  of  age. 

John  was  greatly  taken  with  the  tale 
of  the  broken  arm,  which  I  made  haste 
to  pass  over  to  him.  But  the  fact  of  the 
young  lady's  youth  did  not  shake  his 
conviction  that  she  wrote  the  poems. 

"A  woman  like  that,"  he  said,  "  might 
have  found  time  for  plenty  of  experi 
ences  before  she  was  twenty-five  years 
old.  She  would  probably  make  no  more 
outcry  over  a  broken  heart  than  over 
a  broken  arm,  and  I  can  imagine 


48  n  Xfterarg  Gourtsbtp 


her  being  the  best  of  company,  when 
she  was  in  the  very  thick  of  it.  But 
if  she  happened  to  have  a  taste  for 
writing  she  might  take  a  fancy  to  put  on 
paper  what  wild  horses  would  not  have 
dragged  from  her  lips  ;  and  once  having 
written  such  poetry  as  hers,  she  would 
have  been  more  or  less  than  human  if  she 
could  have  kept  it  to  herself." 

"  I  can  fancy  just  what  kind  of  a  girl 
she  is, ' '  John  told  me  one  day.  ' '  She  is 
probably  rather  plain,  but  with  a  good 
deal  of  brilliancy  of  expression  and  a 
touch  of  cynicism  in  her  face  and  in  her 
talk.  A  flattering  manner,  I  should 
say,  but  with  the  heart  a  little  gone  out 
of  it.  Just  a  little.  Everybody  would  n't 
notice  it. ' ' 

"  Only  it  could  n't  escape  a  student  of 
human  nature  like  you,  Jack." 

"  Nor  a  master  of  satire  like  you, 
Francis.  No,  we  should  not  be  de 
ceived." 

And  John  pursued  the  correspondence 
with  unabated  vigor. 


Ibfnts  anfc  ©nesses  49 


It  is  really  a  great  pity  that  I  have  n't 
those  letters,  for,  without  having  read 
them,  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of 
two  sane  men  taking  the  step  we  perpe 
trated  later  on.  As  it  was,  the  letters 
led  up  to  it  very  naturally. 

As  the  time  for  the  appearance  of 
the  poems  approached,  Brunt  began  to 
urge  upon  Miss  I/amb  the  necessity  for 
furnishing  some  sort  of  nom-de-plume  to 
distinguish  the  book  from  any  other 
collection  labelled  simply  Verses.  Here 
is  her  answer : 

MY  DEAR  MR.  BRUNT  : 

You  are  perfectly  right  in  requiring  a 
distinguishing  name  for  either  the  book  or  the 
author,  and  I  have  at  last  persuaded  my  friend 
to  choose  one  for  herself.  She  proposes  to  be 
called  '  Leslie  Smith.'  The  Leslie  she  adopts 
out  of  compliment  to  me.  The  Smith  for  the 
sake  of  obscurity.  It  seems  to  me  rather  a  good 
combination,  and,  as  for  my  own  share  in  it,  I 
am  so  puffed  up  by  having  my  name  for  a  sec 
ond  time  associated  with  literature,  that  I  am 
almost  ready  to  take  it  as  an  omen  of  distinc 
tion.  I  shall  not  even  be  surprised  to  find  my 
self  perpetrating  a  literary  feat  one  of  these 


50  B  Xitcrars  Courtsbip 

days.  When  I  do,  I  shall  insist  upon  Miss 
Lamb's  rendering  up  her  own  name  for  my  use. 
Do  you  think  she  would  ?  It  would  be  no  more 
than  a  fair  exchange".  I  only  hope  it  is  a  name 
I  should  fancy.  Marion  de  Montmorency  or 
something  like  that,  high-sounding  and  im 
pressive.  For  I  propose  to  write  nothing  less 
than  an  immortal  epic." 

"That's  a  good  one,"  I  shouted,  as 
John  read  me  this  part  of  the  letter. 
"Confess,  Jack,  that  is  the  first  time  a 
girl  ever  asked  you,  outright,  to  bestow 
your  name  upon  her." 

John  laughed  too,  but  with  a  slightly 
preoccupied  air. 

I '  I  rather  wonder  that  she  should  have 
ventured  on  the  Leslie,"  he  said,  "but 
it  makes  a  good  name.  There  is  contrast 
enough  in  it  to  make  it  hold  together." 

The  poems  of  Leslie  Smith  were  to  ap 
pear  early  in  January.  It  was  not  prac 
ticable  to  get  them  out  for  the  holidays, 
and  John  said  that  was  of  no  consequence. 
They  were  poems  which  would  require 
time  before  they  could  gain  general  rec 
ognition.  If  there  should  be  a  demand 


•feints  anfc  Guesses  51 


for  them  by  the  next  holiday  season  it 
would  be  as  much  as  we  could  hope  for. 
The  business  preliminaries  being  pretty 
well  settled  early  in  October,  there  seemed 
to  be  no  special  reason  for  keeping  up  so 
lively  a  correspondence  as  before.  John 
evidently  regretted  this,  and  he  cudgelled 
his  brains  for  pretexts  for  writing.  I  do 
not  mean  that  the  letters  ceased  coming  al 
together,  but  there  were  pauses  and  John 
fretted.  I  was  not  surprised,  about  this 
time,  to  find  him  dwelling  a  good  deal 
upon  the  winter  climate  in  Colorado.  He 
managed  to  beat  up  considerable  infor 
mation  on  the  subject,  and  it  all  tended  to 
prove  that  the  man  who  had  not  seen 
Pike's  Peak  in  mid- winter  was  a  fit  sub 
ject  for  commiseration.  That,  at  least, 
was  the  drift  of  his  communications  to 
me.  Preparing  my  mind,  as  I  afterward 
learned,  for  his  grand  coup. 


_,-' 


VI. 


THE  PILGRIMAGE. 


day  about  the  middle  of  Novem- 
her,  John  stalked  into  my  office  with 
his  most  determined  air.  If  any  one  were 
to  ask  me  what  I  consider  to  be  John 
Brunt's  chief  characteristic,  I  should  say 
it  was  determination.  I  have  a  will  of 
my  own,  as  many  people  would  readily 
testify.  In  fact,  I  have,  in  my  own  fam 
ily,  a  reputation  for  being  rather  stub 
born.  But,  Great  Caesar  !  I  am  a  mush 
of  concession  compared  to  John  when 


Gbe  pilgrimage  53 


once  he  has  an  idea.  So  when  he  marched 
into  my  office  that  morning, — there  did  n'  t 
happen  to  be  any  clients  at  the  moment — 
I  was  curious  to  know  what  he  was  after. 
I  could  see  that  he  was  in  good  spirits  to 
begin  with. 

"Hollo,  Dick!"  said  he.  "I  hope 
that 's  not  a  brief  that  I  'm  interrupting." 

It  was  in  reality  a  letter  to  my  father, 
thanking  him  for  a  very  opportune  re 
mittance.  But  I  did  not  think  it  neces 
sary  to  explain,  and  I  got  it  out  of  sight, 
saying,  carelessly:  "Never  mind,  old 
fellow  !  I  'm  not  pressed  for  time." 

John  grinned,  in  a  way  I  did  not  alto 
gether  like,  and  sat  down  on  the  arm  of 
a  chair. 

"Well,  Dick,"  he  said,  without  more 
ado,  ' '  where  do  you  suppose  you  and  I  are 
likely  to  be,  week  after  next  at  this  time  ? ' ' 

"If  we  are  together,"  I  replied,  "we 
are  likely  to  be  in  this  office." 

' '  You ' re  out  there  !  "  he  cried.  ' '  Bet 
ter  guess  again." 

' '  Perhaps  you  know  more  of  my  future 


54  B  Xfterarg  Courtsbtp 


movements  than  I  do,"  said  I,  pretending 
to  resent  his  assumption. 

"  You  may  bet  your  hat  I  do  !  " 

Sometimes  when  Brunt  is  in  the  very 
best  of  spirits,  he  relapses  into  the  baldest 
slang.  To  rest  his  English,  he  explains. 

"  Bless  you,  Dick,"  I  've  heard  him  say, 
"  you  don't  want  to  drive  a  willing  horse 
to  death — I  should  n't  have  any  English 
left  if  I  squandered  it  on  you  ! ' ' 

"  Perhaps  you  would  be  kind  enough 
to  enlighten  me  as  to  my  immediate  fu 
ture,"  said  I. 

' '  Of  course  I  will.  That  ' s  just  what  I 
looked  in  for,"  and  he  glanced  at  me 
quizzically,  yet  I  fancied  a  little  doubt 
fully  too. 

"  Fire  away,"  said  I,  "but  just  bear  in 
mind  that  the  lease  of  this  office  has 
another  year  to  run. ' ' 

John  had  walked  to  the  window  and 
stood  with  his  back  planted  against  it, 
fixing  me  with  that  look  which  I  think  I 
have  mentioned  before,  as  though  he  were 
taking  aim. 


pilgrimage  55 


"You  and  I,"  he  announced  with  de 
liberate  emphasis,  ' '  are  to  be  in  Colorado 
—  don't  interrupt  me — scaling  Pike's 
Peak,  strolling  through  the  Garden  of  the 
Gods,  where  we  shall  probably  pluck 
Olympian  bouquets,  bowling  over  the 
limitless  prairies"  —this  with  a  gland 
'lourish, — "penetrating  into  inaccessible 
canons ' ' 

' '  And  making  the  acquaintance  of  Miss 
lyilian  Leslie  I^amb,"  I  suggested  with 
a  knowing  smile.  "It  's  a  good  idea, 
old  man.  Go,  with  my  blessing,  and 
count  upon  my  being  with  you  in  spirit. ' ' 

"  No,  Dick  !  I  would  n't  give  a  nickle 
for  your  spirit.  It  's  you  I  must  have. 
Flesh  and  blood  are  good  enough  for  me. ' ' 

' '  You  forget,  my  dear  boy,  that  my 
flesh  and  blood  are  indispensably  neces 
sary  to  my  clients — and  also  that  the 
railroad  companies  have  an  unconquer 
able  propensity  to  deplete  the  pocket- 
books  of  flesh-and-blood  travellers.  Mine 
is  not  plethoric. ' ' 

' '  Out  again  ! ' '   cried  John.     ' '  We  are 


56  B  Xiterarg  Gouttsbtp 


both  going  at  the  invitation  of  my  friend, 
Miss  Lamb." 

"At  the  invitation  of  Miss  Lamb?" 
said  I,  rather  stupidly  I  confess. 

"Certainly.  Of  Miss  Lamb,  the  dis 
tinguished  novelist.  If  I  am  not  too 
proud  to  accept  such  an  invitation  from  a 
lady,  why  should  you  be  ?  A  new  batch 
of  four  thousand  is  coming  out  for  the 
holidays,  and  she  wishes  her  collaborator 
— that  is,  myself — and  her  agent — that  's 
you,  Dick — to  regard  the  proceeds  as  their 
fair  share  of  the  plunder.  She  only  stipu 
lates  that  they  shall  enlarge  their  knowl 
edge  of  the  world,  and  especially  of  their 
own  country,  by  taking  the  proposed  jour 
ney,  thus  fitting  themselves  to — 

This  being  sheer  bosh  I  put  a  stop  to 
it,  and  a  lively  discussion  ensued.  The 
outcome  of  it  was  the  triumph  of  Deter 
mination  over  Common  Sense,  by  means 
of  arguments  which  might  be  wearisome 
if  repeated.  Only  one  fact  can  be  of  in 
terest — the  fact  that  John's  assertion  was 
correct,  that  we  were  actually  in  Col- 


ttbe  pilgrimage  57 


orado  Springs  within  two  weeks  of  the 
time  of  that  conversation. 

Injustice  to  myself,  I  should  add  that 
I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  travelling  about 
at  my  friends'  expense,  but  that  seeing 
how  much  John's  heart  was  set  upon  my 
going  with  him — for  he  thinks  more  of 
me  than  one  would  suppose  at  the  first 
blush,  and  I  knew  he  would  rather  have 
me  along  than  any  one  else,  and  that  it 
would  be  rather  slow  music  to  go  alone — 
considering  that,  I  say,  and  that  I  should 
feel  just  as  he  did  if  the  positions  were 
reversed,  and  that  he  really  was  uncom 
monly  flush  just  then  (what  a  snarl  a 
fellow  gets  into,  by  the  way,  when  he 
talks  apologetically  !  ),  I  thought  I  might 
as  well  go,  if  only  to  keep  him  in  counte 
nance.  I  must  also  confess  that  I  shared 
his  interest  in  Miss  I/amb  so  far  as  to  feel 
that  Pike's  Peak  dwindled  to  a  mere  noth 
ing  in  comparison. 


VII. 

THE    PRAIRIE. 

T  T  was  a  glorious  morning  early  in  De- 
*•  cember  when  we  arrived  in  Colorado 
Springs.  In  fact  we  never  saw  anything 
but  glorious  weather  during  our  stay. 
We  got  there  in  the  morning,  and  had  a 
solemn  consultation  as  to  whether  we  had 
better  present  ourselves  at  Miss  Lamb's 
door  before  or  after  luncheor .  We  learned 
that  Mrs.  Ellerton's  house  was  only  a  few 
blocks  distant  from  our  hotel,  and  having 
fixed  upon  twelve  o'clock  as  the  latest 


prairie  59 


hour  for  which  we  could  possibly  wait, 
we  seated  ourselves  upon  the  hotel  piazza. 
and  endeavored  to  appreciate  Pike's  Peak. 
It  did  not  seem  to  us  very  high,  and  it  did 
seem  uncommonly  ugly,  in  spite  of  its 
nightcap  of  snow.  But  we  looked  at  it 
hard  for  an  hour,  and  then  we  started  up 
Cascade  Avenue  in  search  of  the  house 
which  was,  properly  speaking,  the  goal  of 
our  two-thousand-mile  pilgrimage.  Miss 
Lamb  not  having  been  warned  of  our 
approach,  John  had  written  a  sort  of 
note  of  introduction  in  that  exaggerated 
hand  which  he  had  adopted  in  all  his  cor 
respondence  for  some  months  past. 

We  found  the  house  without  difficulty, 
but  we  did  not  find  the  ladies.  Mrs. 
Ellerton  was  '  '  not  at  home,  '  '  and  Miss 
Lamb  was  out  riding.  We  left  the  note 
and  our  cards,  and  turned  away  very 
much  chagrined.  I  think  we  both  had 
confidently  expected  to  see  Miss  Lamb 
open  the  door  to  us  herself,  holding  a 
half-finished  sonnet  in  her  left  hand. 

'  '  What  idiots  we  were,  '  '  said  John. 


6o  a  iLfteratB  Courtsbip 


"Why  idiots?"  I  asked. 

"  Never  to  have  thought  of  her  not  be 
ing  at  home." 

' '  Speak  for  yourself, ' '  said  I. 

At  that  moment  a  young  woman  on 
horseback  cantered  past. 

"That  girl  rides  well,"  I  exclaimed. 

"That's  she,"  said  John,  andhe  turned 
abruptly  round  to  watch  her,  regardless 
of  manners. 

"  How  do  you  know  it  is  she  ?  " 

"That  is  the  way  she  would  ride." 

' '  She  does  not  look  like  the  author  of 
those  melancholy  ditties,"  I  objected. 

' '  No,  but  she  looks  like  the  author  of 
the  jubilant  ones. ' ' 

We  were  walking  slowly  back,  and 
John  was  much  elated  at  his  own  penetra 
tion  when  the  lady  stopped  in  front  of  the 
house  we  had  just  left,  sprang  lightly  to 
the  ground,  patted  her  horse's  nose, 
hitched  him  to  the  post,  and  went  into  the 
house.  We  were  not  quite  a  block  away,  so 
that  we  could  see  every  movement  plainly, 
though  the  face  was  not  discernible. 


ZTbe  Praide  61 


"  She  walks  as  well  as  she  does  every 
thing  else,"  said  John. 

'  '  Have  you  ever  heard  her  play  the 
piano  ?  "  I  asked,  satirically. 

"  I  have  an  idea  that  she  does  n't  play 
the  piano,  '  '  he  replied,  with  perfect  seri 
ousness. 

We  were  absurdly  disappointed.  Here 
we  were  in  Colorado,  and  all  we  had  got 
for  our  pains  thus  far  was  Pike's  Peak. 
John  swore  he  had  never  seen  anything 
half  so  hideous,  and  I  quite  agreed  with 
him. 

As  we  came  out  from  luncheon  the 
bell-boy  handed  Brunt  a  note.  John's 
face  flushed  up  as  he  broke  the  seal. 

'  '  She  invites  us  both  to  dinner  in  the 
name  of  her  aunt,  at  half-past  six  this  even 
ing,  '  '  he  announced  with  a  delighted  grin. 

"She  's  a  trump,"  said  I. 

We  went  for  a  ride  ourselves  that  after 
noon,  out  onto  the  plains.  John  said  he 
wanted  to  get  away  from  Pike's  Peak. 
But  when  we  turned  to  come  back  some 
thing  had  happened. 


62  B  Uiterarg  Courtsbfp 


"  By  Jove  !  "  we  both  cried  in  a  breath, 
"look  at  that" 

There  was  Pike's  Peak  apparently 
about  fifty  thousand  feet  high,  with  the 
sun  just  disappearing  behind  him,  while 
to  the  southward  another  great  mountain 
stood  out,  warm  and  mellow  with  the 
bloom  of  a  damson  plum  upon  it,  and 
farther  south  yet,  in  the  dim  distance, 
there  was  a  ghostly  glimmering  range  of 
snow  mountains  that  we  had  not  seen 
before.  To  the  northward  all  the  hills 
were  a  sort  of  navy-blue. 

One  thing  I  had  determined  not  to  do, 
was  to  give  any  descriptions  of  scenery, 
mainly  because  I  don't  know  how.  But, 
upon  my  word,  the  bare  facts  of  that  sight 
were  miles  ahead  of  any  description. 
The  horses,  too,  had  suddenly  waked  up, 
and  bounded  over  the  plain  at  a  great 
rate.  They  kept  abreast  of  each  other  in 
good  shape,  and  the  gait  was  so  easy  and 
so  swift  that  we  felt  as  though  we  were 
in  a  ship  at  sea. 

Suddenly  John  cried :  "I  say,  Dick, 


prairie  63 


let  's  jell  !  One,  two,  three  !  "  and  at  the 
word  we,  lifted  up  our  two  voices  and 
shouted  ylike  wild  Indians.  Some  cows 
chewing  gravel  on  a  little  elevation  that  we 
happened  to  be  passing  —  for  they  have 
nothing  else  to  chew  at  that  season  —  lifted 
their  horned  heads  against  the  sky  and 
gazed  at  us  reproachfully,  and  a  couple 
of  prairie-dogs  scampered  across  the  plain 
and  popped  into  their  holes  ;  but  our  un- 
echoed  shout  reached  no  other  ears,  and 
we  cantered  on,  much  relieved  by  it. 

It  was  dark  before  we  got  back,  and  a 
young  moon  appeared,  tilting  over  the 
black  shoulder  of  Pike's  Peak,  south  of 
the  nightcap.  We  and  the  horses  calmed 
down  and  came  in  quite  cool. 


VIII. 

WITHIN  THE  PORTIERES. 

A  N  hour  later,  having  hung  up  our 
•"•  overcoats  in  Mrs.  Ellerton's  hall, 
we  turned  to  see  two  figures  coming 
through  the  portieres,  and  while  the  elder 
lady  greeted  me  without  venturing  a 
guess  as  to  which  of  us  was  which,  Miss 
L,amb  met  John  with  extended  hand,  say 
ing  very  warmly  :  ' '  You  are  Mr.  Brunt, 
I  am  sure. ' ' 


•Gdftbfn  tbe  portieres  65 


I  thought  it  an  unfair  discrimination 
though  it  was  accidentally  correct.  John, 
to  be  sure,  is  bigger  than- 1,  but  why 
should  a  big  man  be  any  more  likely  than 
one  of  more  modest  proportions  to  be  a 
literary  light  ?  The  worst  of  it  was  that 
John,  when  I  sounded  him  later,  would 
not  own  to  having  felt  flattered.  He 
seemed  to  take  it  for  granted  that  she 
should  know  him  at  sight — quite  as 
though  he  had  been  labelled  ' '  distin 
guished  author."  But  she  was  very  nice 
to  me  too,  and  we  both  felt  at  home  im 
mediately.  John  took  the  aunt  in  to 
dinner  and  I  the  niece,  but  it  really  made 
no  difference,  as  there  were  only  four  of 
us. 

This  would  be  the  moment  to  describe 
the  two  ladies  if  descriptions  were  in  my 
line.  Mrs.  Ellerton,  I  thought,  would 
have  been  a  trifle  commonplace  if  she 
had  not  been  so  perfectly  well-bred  ;  but 
perfect  breeding  is  perhaps  too  unusual 
to  leave  its  possessor  quite  without  dis 
tinction. 


66  a  ILiterarg  Courtsbtp 

Miss  I^amb,  with  the  black  hair  and 
blue  eyes  she  had  described,  was  not  an 
out-and-out  beauty,  and  yet  I  thought 
her  uncommonly  good-looking.  John 
said,  afterward,  that  she  had  frank  eyes 
and  a  reserved  mouth,  and  that  that  was 
why  he  liked  her.  I  was  amused  at  his 
definiteness,  for  I  privately  believed  that, 
with  his  preconceived  ideas,  a  frank 
mouth  and  reserved  eyes  would  have 
pleased  him  just  as  well.  What  I  liked 
about  her  was  her  self-possession  and  her 
cordiality.  You  felt  her  good-breeding, 
while  there  was  that  in  her  manner  which 
made  you  think  that  she  thought  as  much 
of  you  as  she  did  of  herself.  But  all  this 
splitting  of  hairs  is  not  in  my  line,  and  I 
will  endeavor  to  confine  myself  to  facts, 
— one  of  which  ie  that  Miss  Lamb  had 
long  black  eyelashes,  which  were  highly 
becoming  to  the  blue  eyes. 

John's  visit,  thanks  to  Mrs.  Ellerton, 
was  not  wholly  untroubled  by  embarrass 
ment,  and  I  wish  I  could  describe  his  face 
when  that  good  lady  said  to  him  : 


TKHitbin  tbc  portieres  67 


"  Do  tell  us,  Mr.  Brunt,  something 
about  Miss  L,amb." 

"  Miss  Lamb  that  is  n't,"  her  niece  ex 
plained.  "  It  is  not  fair,  Mr.  Brunt,  to 
put  your  discretion  to  such  a  test. ' ' 

"  Thank  you,"  Brunt  answered  grate 
fully.  "  Mr.  Dickson  and  I  are  in  rather 
a  difficult  position." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  I,  cheerfully,  think 
ing  that  the  situation  was  worth  working 
up.  "We  shall  be  happy  to  tell  you 
anything  about  Miss  Lamb  which  does 
not  involve  her  identity.  What  would 
you  like  to  know  ?  ' ' 

"Oh,  everything,"  said  Mrs.  Eller- 
ton,  hospitablv.  "Was  Spoils  her  first 
novel  ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

' '  Remarkable  young  woman  !  And  is 
she  delighted  with  her  success  ?  ' ' 

' '  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  that. ' ' 

' '  How  old  a  woman  is  she  ?  ' ' 

' '  About  thirty-five. ' ' 

' '  Come,  Dick,  do  you  think  that 's  quite 
fair  ? ' '  John  remonstrated. 


68  a  literary  Courtsbip 


"Why  not?"  said  I,  airily.  "The 
age  wont  identify  her.  There  are  plenty 
of  women  of  thirty-five. ' ' 

"Is  she  handsome?  "  asked  Miss  Lamb, 
with  a  smile.  She  was  evidently  amused 
at  John's  discomfiture. 

' '  That  is  a  question  for  you  to  answer, 
John,"  said  I.  "You're  a  better  judge 
than  I." 

But  instead  of  embarrassing  him,  this 
bold-faced  attack  on  my  part  seemed  to 
put  John  on  his  mettle,  and  he  answered 
composedly  :  "  She  is  very  beautiful." 

' '  Dark  or  fair  ?  ' '  asked  Miss  Lamb. 

"A  delicate  blonde,"  John  replied, 
with  a  perfectly  straight  face.  "  She  has 
dreamy  dark  eyes  but  her  skin  is  fair  as 
a  lily,  and  her  hair  is  of  that  exquisite  gold 
which  seldom  lasts  into  middle  life.  I 
have  known  her  for  years,  and  it  seems  to 
me  she  is  as  absolutely  beautiful  as  she 
was  when  she  was  a  girl." 

"  Very  unlike  one's  idea  of  a  middle- 
aged  authoress, "  Mrs.  Ellerton  remarked ; 
while  Miss  Lamb  gave  John  a  furtively 


TKHltbfn  tbe  portfires  69 


penetrating  look.  An  inscrutable  smile 
played  about  her  lips.  She  clearly  fan 
cied  that  Mr.  Brunt  was  betraying  a 
deeper  interest  in  the  ' '  delicate  blonde  ' ' 
than  he  intended. 

"Exactly,"  said  John,  in  answer  to 
Mrs.  Ellerton's  remark.  ' '  That  is  doubt 
less  one  reason  why  she  has  been  so  suc 
cessful  in  maintaining  her  incognito." 

"  Is  she  of  good  family  ?  "  queried  the 
genealogical  aunt. 

"  I  do  not  know  much  about  her  ante 
cedents.  She  lives  with  an  invalided 
father  to  whom  she  has  devoted  her  life. ' ' 

' '  Is  she  unmarried  ?  ' '  Mrs.  Ellerton 
asked,  with  growing  interest. 

' '  Yes, ' '  said  I,  not  wishing  to  be  wholly 
left  out  of  the  conversation. 

' ;  She  is  much  sought, ' '  Brunt  answered. 
"  Mr.  Dickson,  for  instance,  worships  the 
ground  she  walks  on.  In  fact,  we  are 
all  more  or  less  her  slaves. ' ' 

"John,"  said  I,  with  emphasis,  "  I 
question  whether  my  esteem  for  her  is 
equal  to  yours. ' ' 


70  a  XtterarB  Courtsbip 


"  Possibly  not,"  he  admitted  ;  "  I  only 
said  that  you  adored  her. ' ' 

' '  And  does  any  one  besides  yourselves 
suspect  the  authorship  ? ' '  asked  Miss 
Lamb. 

"No,"  John  answered.  "Even  her 
father  is  in  ignorance  of  it.  In  fact,"  he 
went  on,  giving  rein  to  his  inventiveness, 
"  it  is  out  of  consideration  to  him  that  she 
keeps  the  secret.  He  has  a  morbid  horror 
of  female  celebrities.  You  could  hardly 
deal  him  a  more  cruel  blow  than  to  tell 
him  that  it  is  his  daughter  who  has  written 
the  book  which  is  making  such  a  stir. ' ' 

"An  aristocratic  trait  I  am  sure,"  said 
Mrs.  Ellerton,  complacently.  "My  father 
would  have  had  the  same  feeling. ' ' 

"  Mine  would  n't  have,"  said  her  niece. 
"  I  am  sure,  from  what  I  remember  of 
him,  that  papa  would  have  been  perfectly 
delighted  with  a  talented  daughter. ' ' 

"  My  poor  brother  was  very  Western, 
you  know,"  Mrs.  Ellerton  sighed. 
"Copper  is  so  levelling,"  she  added, 
turning  to  me  for  sympathy. 


"GUWbtn  tbe  portieres  71 


I  have  not  mentioned  it  before,  but  I 
am  said  to  have  rather  an  aristocratic 
turn  of  countenance  ;  a  thing  which  prob 
ably  invited  the  confidence  of  the  genea 
logical  aunt.  I  should,  of  course,  prefer 
to  be  like  Brunt,  rugged  and  imposing, 
but  if  one  must  be  on  a  smaller  scale,  one 
likes  to  have  the  qualities  of  one's  defects. 

By  this  time  I,  for  one,  was  quite  in  a 
daze.  But  I  reflected  that  the  best  thing 
I  could  do  was  to  try  and  believe  in  the 
mythical  Miss  I,anib  John  had  so  vividly 
depicted,  and  I  think  it  was  this  distinct 
image  in  my  mind  which  kept  me  from 
making  a  mess  of  the  secret  on  several 
subsequent  occasions. 

Meanwhile  it  seemed  a  pity  to.  let  slip 
so  good  an  opportunity  of  getting  a  little 
information  ourselves,  so  I  presently  said  : 
"I  wish,  Mrs.  EHerton,  you  would  re 
ciprocate  by  telling  us  something  about 
Leslie  Smith  the  coming  poet. ' ' 

"I  only  wish  I  could,"  said  Mrs.  Bl- 
lerton,  ' '  but  I  really  have  n't  the  least  idea 
who  she  is.  Lilian  is  so  secret  about  it 


that  I  begin  to  suspect  her  of  having 
written  the  poems  herself,  and  to  regret 
that  I  did  not  persevere  in  my  attempt  to 
read  them  all." 

Miss  Lamb  listened  without  a  shadow 
of  self-consciousness,  and  said:  "Don't 
be  alarmed,  Aunt  Bessie.  You  will  never 
have  to  blush  over  the  discovery  of  a 
genius  under  your  own  roof. ' ' 

We  both  pondered  that  speech  and  we 
both  fitted  it  in  our  own  minds  with  the 
same  adjective ;  namely,  enigmatical. 

I  was  proud  of  John  that  evening.  His 
little  fiction  about  the  other  Miss  Lamb 
seemed  to  have  an  exhilarating  effect 
upon  him,  and  I  had  never  seen  him 
more  entertaining.  Miss  Lamb  must 
have  been  interested,  though  she  evinced 
her  good  breeding  by  showing  me  quite 
as  much  attention  as  she  did  John.  Out 
wardly,  indeed,  I  came  out  rather  ahead, 
for  while  Miss  Lamb's  good  manners 
led  her  to  conceal  the  preference  she 
must  have  felt  for  John,  the  aunt,  with 
less  tact,  treated  me  with  a  marked  con- 


Witbin  tbe  portfires  73 


sideration  which  John  did  not  share. 
Perhaps  that  was  why  I  liked  Mrs.  El- 
lerton  better  than  John  did.  You  can't 
very  well  help  liking  folks  who  like  you, 
especially  when  they  seem  to  be  rather 
superior,  critical  sort  of  people.  And 
when  she  ofiered  us  Nestor  cigarettes  in 
the  parlor,  even  John  softened  and  dis 
covered,  as  he  afterward  admitted,  that 
' '  the  genealogical  fiend ' '  was  not  quite 
without  humanity. 

There  was  an  open  wood  fire  in  the 
parlor  and  a  generally  homelike  air  which 
we  footsore  travellers  found  much  to  our 
taste. 

"How  Eastern  it  seems!"  said  I  to 
Miss  Lamb,  as  we  lighted  our  cigarettes. 

"Dick  does  n't  mean  Oriental,"  John 
put  in.  "  It  is  the  Atlantic  seaboard  that 
he  has  in  mind." 

' '  It  does  seem  like  home, ' '  I  main 
tained. 

"  We  are  so  glad  to  hear  you  say  so," 
said  Miss  Lamb.  ' '  We  like,  of  all  things,  to 
hear  any  praise  of  our  own  hired  house. ' ' 


74  B  Xfterarg  Courtsbip 


' '  It  seems  like  our  own  house, ' '  Mrs. 
Ellerton  added  comfortably.  "It  is  so 
full  of  our  own  things.  We  have  lived 
here  four  years.  I  am  sure  I  don't  know 
why  we  don't  go  away." 

"But  I  know  why,"  said  her  niece. 
"It  is  because  we  have  a  genealogical 
neighbor  next  door." 

"And  you?"  asked  Brunt. 

"I?  oh!  I  can't  leave  Cheyenne 
Canon, — to  say  nothing  of  Aunt  Bessie. 
And  I  am  afraid  a  change  of  climate 
might  not  agree  with  Tiger. ' ' 

"Tiger  is ?" 

' '  My  horse.  His  real  name  is  Tiger- 
eye.  When  you  see  the  gloss  on  his 
neck  you  will  know  how  he  came  by  the 
name.  Tiger  has  never  been  lower  down 
in  the  world  than  six  thousand  feet 
above  sea-level.  And,  besides,  he  is 
very  fond  of  the  Canon  and  of  the  Mesa. 
Do  you  like  it?  "  she  asked,  abruptly. 

"  We  hated  it  this  morning,"  said  John. 

"  I  am  glad  of  that.  Every  real  Colo- 
radoan  hates  it  at  first." 


TJQttbin  tbc  fcortffcres  75 


"  But  we  did  n't  hate  it  long,"  I  ex 
plained.  ' '  It  was  magnificent  this  after 
noon,  riding  over  the  plains." 

' '  Over  the  plains  !  ' '  she  cried.  ' '  And 
not  over  the  Mesa  !  What  remarkable 
tourists  you  are  !  How  did  you  escape 
going  first  to  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  ?  ' ' 

' '  They  told  us  we  ought  to,  and  so 
John  would  n't." 

"  I  admire  you.  You  are  the  great 
unprecedented. ' ' 

"As  a  reward,  we  might  take  you 
through  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  to 
morrow,"  said  Mrs.  Bllerton. 

"  Or  as  a  punishment,"  her  niece 
amended.  ' '  They  would  much  prefer  to 
ride  or  walk. ' ' 

We  protested,  and  the  drive  was 
arranged. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  as  we  closed  the  gate 
behind  us — 

"Well!"  said  John— 

"  Pike's  Peak  improves  on  acquaint 
ance.  ' ' 

"  Pike's  Peak  is  great !  " 


76  a  Xtterars  Courtsbfp 


And  John  lighted  a  cigar  and  nodded 
approvingly  at  the  enormous  hump  of 
a  mountain.  The  nightcap  looked  very 
pretty  in  the  starlight. 

I  waited  for  John  to  say  something 
more,  for  I  wished  the  expression  of  his 
views  to  be  quite  spontaneous.  But  he 
did  not  seem  to  feel  communicative,  and 
I  had  to  begin. 

"How  about  the  cynicism,  Jack?" 
said  I,  at  last. 

"  It  is  n't  visible  to  the  naked  eye." 

"  And  the  poems.  Do  you  believe  she 
wrote  them  ?  ' ' 

"She  doesn't  look  it.  But  it  is  dif 
ficult  to  judge.  What  do  you  think 
about  it,  Dick?  " 

"Women  are  deep,"  said  I,  thinking 
it  best  to  be  non-committal. 

We  discussed  the  question  off  and  on 
as  we  walked  up  to  the  north  end  of  the 
town  and  back,  but  we  did  not  get  much 
enlightenment.  It  was  clear  which  way 
our  wishes  went.  John  did  not  wish  her 
to  have  written  the  poems,  while  I  did. 


TKHttbin  tbe  portfires  77 


I  was  charmed  with  the  idea  of  convers 
ing  with  an  agreeable  young  lady,  who 
was  apparently  in  the  best  of  spirits,  and 
of  being  at  the  same  time  aware  that  she 
was  the  prey  to  despair.  There  had  been 
moments  during  the  evening  when  I  was 
almost  able  to  fancy  that  I  could  hear  the 
"worm  i'  the  bud";  but  while  Miss 
L,arnb's  cheek  was  not  exactly  damask, 
it  did  not,  on  the  other  hand,  look  as 
though  it  had  furnished  many  repasts. 
It  was  merely  a  very  sound  and  normal 
specimen  of  its  kind.  All  the  better.  It 
was,  perhaps — nay,  probably — a  mask, 
behind  which  lurked  who  could  say  what 
chagrins  and  disenchantments.  In  our 
future  intercourse  with  Miss  I/amb  I  was 
eagerly  on  the  look-out  for  signs  of  hid 
den  anguish,  while  John  was  searching 
for  proofs  that  she  did  not  write  poetry. 
It  may  as  well  be  confessed  that  one  of 
us  was  not  much  more  successful  than  the 
other  ;  that  there  was  nothing  in  her 
appearance  or  behavior  to  make  Miss 
I^amb  seem  other  than  rather  a  finished 


21  XfterarE  Gourtsbfp 


young  woman  of  the  world,  with  mind 
enough  to  have  written  good  verses  if 
Nature  had  given  her  the  bent,  and  bal 
ance  enough  to  keep  her  own  counsel  on 
any  and  every  subject. 


IX. 

THE   GATEWAY. 

|\  |  OW  that  I  have  once  begun  describing 
1  ^  things,  I  find  I  have  quite  a  taste 
for  it,  and  I  should  like  nothing  better 
than  to  try  my  hand  on  the  Garden  of 
the  Gods.  How  the  huge  red  ' '  Gateway  ' ' 
appears  as  you  drive  across  the  Mesa, — 
in  fact  the  Mesa  itself,  that  splendid 
natural  boulevard  away  up  in  the  air, 
with  the  plains  below  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  mountains  rising  up  on  the  other, 
and  the  silvery  line  of  leafless  cotton- 


•8o  B  Xiterarg  Courtsbip 


woods,  running  like  a  brook  from  the 
entrance  to  Glen  Eyrie  along  the  road  to 
the  Gateway.  But  what  I  should  like 
best  would  be  to  describe  the  Gateway 
itself,  made  of  two  thundering  great  red 
rocks  standing  up  on  end,  with  Pike's 
Peak  looming  in  fine  style  beyond,  and  a 
delicious  blue  sky  overhead.  We  liked  it 
better  than  we  had  meant  to,  for,  as  John 
said,  it  was  undeniably  theatrical,  and  it 
ought  not  to  appeal  to  a  refined  taste. 
But  Miss  Lamb  said  she  hated  a  refined 
taste,  and  Mrs.  Ellerton  remarked  that 
she  could  n't  see  anything  exactly  unre 
fined  about  the  Garden,  though  she 
often  wished  the  rocks  were  of  a  quieter 
color. 

"O  Aunt  Bessie  !  "  Miss  Lamb  cried, 
"  you  don't  know  what  you  are  saying  ! 
It  is  the  color  that  makes  Colorado  so 
adorable.  I  am  sure  that  when  we  go 
East  we  shall  find  green  quite  tame  by 
comparison." 

"  Oh!  I  would  n't  have  the  rocks  green," 
Mrs.  Ellerton  replied,  with  a  gleam  of 


©atewag  81 


humor.  "  Only  sometimes  when  the  sun 
strikes  them  they  seem  to  glare  at  one." 

Before  going  through  the  Gateway  we 
drove  to  the  northern  end  of  the  massive 
wall  of  rocks  and  stopped  in  the  shadow. 
They  call  the  view  there,  where  only  the 
narrow  upright  end  is  visible,  the  Tower 
of  Babel ;  but,  as  John  said,  it  looked 
more  like  the  prow  of  a  great  ship  bearing 
down  upon  us. 

"That  is  what  I  always  think  of," 
said  Miss  L,amb.  ' '  I  sometimes  feel  quite 
afraid  to  stand  here  in  the  shadow.  It 
seems  as  though  it  must  come  rushing 
upon  one,  or  topple  over  from  the  shock 
of  arrested  motion.  In  the  summer,  when 
it  does  n't  cast  a  shadow  just  here,  you 
don't  have  at  all  the  same  impression.  I 
never  come  here  in  summer. ' ' 

"  Then  you  enjoy  the  feeling  of  immi 
nent  destruction  ?  ' '  John  asked. 

"  I  like  power, "  she  answered. 

"Then,"  thought  I  to  myself,  "you 
are  pretty  sure  to  like  John,  for  he  is  power 
personified." 


82  a  XfterarB  Courtsbip 


Mrs.  Ellerton  and  I,  meanwhile,  talked 
plain  English  on  the  back  seat. 

' '  I  never  before  knew  Lilian  to  let  any 
one  else  drive,"  Mrs.  Kllerton  observed. 
"She  is  not  usually  happy  unless  she 
holds  the  reins." 

I  hoped  John  did  not  hear  this  remark, 
for  I  thought  it  would  make  him  con 
ceited.  But  Miss  Lamb  must  have  heard 
it,  for  she  immediately  turned  to  John  and 
asked :  "  Does  the  make-believe  Miss 
Lamb  like  to  drive  ?  ' ' 

"  She  never  gives  up  the  reins,"  John 
replied. 

"  Does  she  drive  well  ?  " 

"She  thinks  she  does." 

"And  you?" 

"  I  think  she  does  too." 

' '  Is  there  anything  she  does  not  do 
well  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Ellerton. 

"According  to  John,  I  don't  believe 
there  is,"  I  answered. 

1 '  There  are  a  good  many  things  she 
does  not  do  at  all,"  said  John. 

"  What  are  they  ?  ' '  queried  Miss  Lamb. 


Cbe  <3atewae  83 


"  Oh,  all  sorts  of  womanly  accomplish 
ments.  Needle-work  and  piano  playing 
and  sketching  in  water  colors. ' ' 

"  She  writes  a  very  good  note." 

"  Do  you  claim  that  as  a  womanly  ac 
complishment  ? ' ' 

' '  Not  exclusively.  But  it  is  an  ac 
complishment  of  hers. ' ' 

Everything  seemed  to  conspire  to  tickle 
John's  vanity. 

' '  The  critics  think  she  has  an  '  almost 
masculine  power,'  "  I  observed,  casually. 
' '  Do  you  see  anything  of  that  in  her  let 
ters  ?" 

1 '  Oh,  no  !  Her  letters  are  extremely 
lady-like.  Don't  you  think  so,  Aunt 
Bessie?" 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Aunt  Bes 
sie.  ' '  I  am  afraid  I  was  not  listening.  I 
was  trying  to  make  out  whether  that  rock 
was  Ben.  Butler  or  the  Irish  Emigrant." 

"  It  is  too  good  a  rock  for  either,"  her 
niece  protested.  "  Is  n't  it  a  shame, ' '  she 
continued,  turning  to  me,  ' '  to  call  these 
splendid  rocks  names  ! ' ' 


84  a  Uterarg  Courtsbip 


Miss  I,amb  always  had  a  very  kind  way 
of  referring  things  to  ine,  but  I  did  not 
deceive  myself  for  a  moment. 

"Speaking  of  names,"  I  said,  "  what 
a  pity  that  Pike's  Peak  could  not  have 
been  called  something  else." 

"Yes,"  said  John.  "Aside  from  its 
ugliness,  it  is  absurd  to  call  a  great  round 
dome  like  that  by  such  a  spiked  name." 

"  We  thought  so,  too,  at  first,"  said 
Miss  lyamb.  ' '  We  decided  it  ought  to 
be  called  the  '  Manitou. '  That  would 
have  been  both  sonorous  and  significant. 
But  after  a  while  we  got  to  like  Pike's 
Peak,  perhaps  because  it  was  so  gro 
tesquely  inappropriate,  and  when  our 
Swedish  parlor-maid  called  it  '  the  Pike, ' 
we  felt  that  that  could  not  be  improved 
upon,  and  '  the  Pike  '  it  has  remained  in 
our  vocabulary." 

Undeniably  Miss  Lamb  had  humor. 
But  then,  so  had  Leslie  Smith.  Some  of 
the  poems  were  as  sparkling  as  others 
were  lugubrious.  They  were  evidently 
the  work  of  a  many-sided  genius.  It 


Gbe  Gateway  85 


was  perplexing  and  it  was  ludicrous 
too,  I  must  admit.  The  young  lady 
was  so  unconscious  of  the  scrutiny  she 
was  undergoing,  and  she  made  her 
little  remarks  so  totally  unaware  of  the 
way  they  were  being  twisted  and  turned 
by  two  inquiring  minds  !  I  do  not  think, 
however,  that  John  listened  in  the  same 
spirit  of  investigation  that  animated  me. 
Occasionally  some  chance  word  of  hers 
may  have  aroused  his  suspicions.  It  was 
probably  in  a  spirit  of  speculation  that  he 
suddenly  asked  Miss  L,amb  if  she  remem 
bered  Leslie  Smith's  poem  comparing 
Colorado  to  Egypt. 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  she  said  ;  "I  remem 
ber  it  perfectly.  The  resemblance  is  very 
striking. ' ' 

"  Were  you  ever  in  Bgypt?  "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,  I  went  there  with  my  uncle  and 
aunt  before  we  came  to  Colorado.  We  were 
all  impressed  by  the  similarity  in  climate 
and  general  aspect  when  we  came  here. ' ' 

How  coolly  she  said  it !  Yes,  women 
are  deep. 


86  a  Xiterarg  Courtsbfp 


But  while  John  may  have  found  food 
for  reflection  in  such  coincidences  and 
suggestions,  I  think  that,  as  a  rule,  when 
in  Miss  L,amb's  society,  he  was  too  much 
occupied  with  her  as  she  chanced  to 
reveal  herself,  to  revert  to  any  surmises 
as  to  her  concealments. 

We  had  driven  the  length  of  the 
' '  Garden, ' '  and  were  passing  out  by  what 
Miss  Lamb  called  the  "Back  Gate,"  a 
passage  between  two  huge  boulders,  one 
of  which  is  quite  the  conventional  bal 
ance  rock,  excepting  that  it  is  brick-red. 
After  that,  there  was  no  scenery  to  speak 
of  (for  we  turned  our  backs  to  the 
mountains)  until,  as  we  returned  over 
the  lower  Mesa,  we  got  a  broad  view  of  the 
plains  to  the  eastward.  The  vast,  undu 
lating  expanse,  streaked  with  mysterious 
currents  of  light,  looked  wonderfully  like 
the  sea,  with  the  bluffs  or  "  buttes " 
rising  here  and  there  like  rock-bound 
islands,  and  the  smoke  from  a  distant 
railway  train  simulating  an  out-going 
steamer. 


Cbe  Gateway  87 


"To  return  to  the  ever  interesting 
author  of  Spoils"  said  Miss  I^amb,  as 
we  crossed  the  bridge  over  the  totally  dry 
bed  of  the  Monument  River.  ' '  Do  you 
not  think  Miss  I^amb's  handwriting  very 
like  a  man's?  " 

"  Oh,  all  literary  people  write  alike," 
I  made  haste  to  say.  "  I  wish  you  could 
see  Mrs.  Raynor's  handwriting.  It  is  so 
like  Brunt's  that  you  could  scarcely  tell 
them  apart." 

This  was  pure  fiction,  but  the  moment 
was  critical. 

"I  think  you  must  be  right,"  Miss 
L,amb  replied.  ' '  Do  you  know,  I  find 
Mr.  Brunt's  hand  and  Miss  L,amb's 
of  exactly  the  same  character.  His  is 
naturally  a  little  larger  and  bolder, 
but  there  is  exactly  the  same  turn  in 
both." 

' '  I  have  noticed  it  myself, ' '  said  Brunt, 
imperturbably .  "It  is  really  singular 
that  two  people  of  such  different  tempera 
ment  should  write  so  much  alike.  It  is 
enough  to  refute  all  theories  as  to  the 


88  B  Xfterarg  Courtsbip 


significance  of  the  handwriting  in  char 
acter-reading." 

' '  Have  you  heard  from  Miss  Lamb 
recently?  "  Mrs.  Ellerton  asked. 

"  Dickson  hears  from  her  oftener  than 
I  do,"  was  John's  reply.  "What  was 
your  last  news,  Dick  ?  ' ' 
.  ' '  My  last  news  of  her, "  said  I ,  promptly , 
"was  that  she  thought  no  beings  so 
enviable  as  those  who  were  in  Colorado. 
She  inquired  very  particularly  for  you, 
Miss  Lamb,  and  said  she  wished  she 
might  hear  from  you  again.  She  said 
you  were  too  chary  of  your  letters. ' ' 

"She  is  very  kind,  I  am  sure,"  said 
Miss  Lamb,  a  little  coolly  I  thought, 
' '  but  I  should  be  sorry  to  encroach  upon 
her  time  without  even  a  poor  pretext." 

"  I  should  think  your  time  and  atten 
tion  were  to  be  considered  also,  "  said 
John.  "Believe  me,  Miss  Lamb,  you 
get  the  best  of  authors  in  their  books.  It 
does  not  often  pay  to  correspond  with 
them." 

"  What  heresy  !  "  cried  I.     "  You  are 


©atewag 


a  real  dog  in  the  manger,  Jack.  You  know 
there  is  no  one  whose  letters  you  enjoy  as 
you  do  those  of  the  author  of  Spoils. ' ' 

' '  Perhaps  I  have  a  pretext  for  writing, ' ' 
said  Miss  Lamb,  relenting.  "  She  would 
be  interested  to  hear  my  account  of  your 
visit.  Do  you  really  think  it  would  not 
be  a  bore  to  her  if  I  were  to  write  ?  " 

As  I  assured  her  of  the  pleasure  it  must 
give,  especially  with  such  subjects  as 
ourselves  to  expatiate  upon,  we  drove  up 
before  Mrs.  Ellerton's  door,  and  John, 
handing  Miss  Lamb  from  the  buckboard, 
said  :  ' '  When  are  we  to  have  a  business 
talk?" 

' '  Whenever  you  will  be  so  kind  as  to 
come  and  see  me,"  she  replied,  gra 
ciously. 

' '  May  I  come  this  afternoon  ?  ' ' 

' '  Pray  do.  I  am  sure  I  could  not 
wait  much  longer  before  talking  over 
our  book." 

"  Dick,"  said  John,  as  we  drove  down 
the  avenue,  "I  did  not  know  you  were 
such  an  unconscionable  villain." 


go  a  Xtterarg  Courtsbip 


"  I  did  not  know  it  myself,  dear  boy  !  " 
said  I,  without  looking  at  him.  I  did 
not  particularly  care  to  see  the  expression 
of  his  face.  But  I  went  on,  callously  : 
"I  don't  know  when  I  have  been  so 
pleased  with  myself.  Could  n't  you 
make  use  of  my  character  in  your  next 
work  of  fiction  ?  '  The  Traitor  Confidant ' 
would  be  a  capital  title,  and  I  shall  take 
great  pleasure  in  furnishing  more  '  copy  ' 
for  the  character." 

"  But,  Dick,  don't  you  see  what  a 
shabby  trick  you  have  played  upon  Miss 
Lamb?" 

"Of  course  I  do.  That  is  where  the 
villainy  comes  in.  And  won't  it  be  nuts 
when  the  letter  arrives  !  " 


CONFIDENCES. 

"""THAT  afternoon,  as  John  and  I  were 
smoking  on  the  hotel  piazza,  who 
should  turn  up  but  Ned  Randall.  We 
used  to  see  a  good  deal  of  Ned  at  the  Pow 
wow  and  elsewhere,  but  after  he  went 
West  we  lost  track  of  him.  It  was  mighty 
pleasant  to  run  across  him  in  this  way, 
and  when  he  said  there  was  tennis  to  be 
had  at  the  Club  grounds,  and  proposed 
our  going  up,  I  thought  I  had  never 
liked  him  so  well.  As  for  John,  he  de 
clined  the  invitation  on  the  score  of  a 
previous  engagement  so  cheerfully  that 
I  wa*s  disgusted  with  him. 

"Can't  you  cut  your  engagement  ?" 
Ned  urged.  ' '  We  ' ve  got  some  pretty 
good  players  up  there." 


92  a  Xfterarg  Courtsbip 


"  I  should  like  to  have  a  whack  at 
ihem  some  other  time,"  John  said,  "  but 
I  can't  come  this  afternoon." 

"All  right,"  said  Ned.  "We  have 
tennis  all  the  year  round  in  Colorado,  so 
you  are  not  likely  to  lose  your  chance." 

"  What  are  you  going  in  for  out  here, 
Ned  ?  "  I  asked,  as  we  walked  up  the 
avenue. 

"  Tennis  and  real-estate." 

"  Which  do  you  make  the  most  money 
at?" 

"Not  at  tennis,"  said  he.  "  I  own 
some  pretty  good  property  out  here. 
That,  for  instance,"  he  added,  as  we 
passed  Mrs.  Ellerton's  gate. 

' '  The  deuce  you  do  !  "  said  I,  with 
undisguised  astonishment.  In  old  times 
Ned  did  not  enjoy  the  reputation  of  being 
a  financial  genius. ' '  How  did  you  do  it  ?  " 

"  I  did  n't  do  it.  The  town  did  it.  It 
has  been  growing  like  a  mushroom  ever 
since  I  came  out,  five  years  ago,  and  I 
had  the  luck  to  chip  in  just  in  time." 

"  You  know  Miss  I^amb  then." 


Confidences  QS 


"  Of  course  I  do.  But  how  did  you 
come  to  know  her  ?  She  is  a  Connecticut 
girl  to  begin  with,  and  she  has  n't  lived 
in  the  East  since  she  left  school." 

"  I  wonder  what  makes  them  stay  on 
here  ?  "  I  queried,  after  having  explained 
our  acquaintance  after  a  fashion.  "  Mr. 
Ellerton  died  here,  did  he  not  ?  I  should 
think  the  associations  might  be  painful." 

"  I  don't  think  Mrs.  Ellerton  is  enter 
prising  enough  to  go  away.  All  the 
enterprise  she  possesses  goes  into  gene 
alogy.  And  by  the  way,  Dick,  you  had 
better  look  out  how  you  let  her  know 
that  you  are  a  Rhode  Island  Dickson. 
If  once  she  gets  hold  of  that  fact  you  will 
wish  you  had  been  born  a  '  mick. '  ' ' 

Ned  does  not  belong  to  the  swell  Ran 
dall  family.  I  suppose  he  had  been 
forced  to  confess  as  much  in  response  to 
Mrs.  Ellerton' s  investigations.  Perhaps 
that  was  why  he  spoke  with  such 
asperity. 

"  Nice  girl,  Miss  Lamb  seems  to  be," 
said  I,  tentatively. 


94  B  Xitcrarg  Courtsbip 


"  Nice  girl !  I  rather  guess  !  I  never  saw 
any  one  nicer.  I  say,  Dick,  neither  of  you 
fellows  are  going  to  carry  her  off,  I  hope. ' ' 

"Not  that  I  know  of.  But  I  should 
think  there  might  have  been  plenty  to 
try  for  it  before  now." 

"  Might  have  been.  Only  I  don't  be 
lieve  any  one  ever  screwed  up  his  courage 
to  ask  her.  /  never  did  !  " — this  with  a 
profound  sigh. 

"Is  she  so  stiff?"  I  asked,  ignoring 
the  implied  confidence. 

"Not  so  much  stiff  as — "he  paused 
for  the  word, — "let  us  say  lucid.  A  fel 
low  would  have  to  be  a  bigger  fool  than 
I  am  to  imagine  that  he  had  a  chance." 

"  And  you  don't  think  she  ever  cared 
for  anybody  ?  ' ' 

"  Well,  of  course  I  can't  say.  There 
has  n't  been  any  one  out  here  that  she 
would  be  likely  to  fancy,  and  she  was  a 
mere  chicken  when  she  came.  Why  do 
you  ask  ?  " 

"  I  was  only  trying  to  get  some  clue 
to  her  lucidity.  It  is  n't  so  common." 


Confidences  95 


At  this  moment  our  arrival  at  the  Club 
grounds  put  an  end  to  confidences. 

I  have  sometimes  wished  that  people 
were  not  so  inclined  to  make  a  confidant 
of  me.  They  are  always  telling  me  their 
love  affairs.  Yet  perhaps  it  is  a  safe 
guard.  For  just  as  soon  as  I  make  the 
acquaintance  of  a  nice  girl  some  fellow  is 
sure  to  tell  me,  under  the  seal  of  secrecy, 
that  he  adores  her,  so  that  my  own  feel 
ings  don't  get  a  chance  to  spring  up. 
But,  as  I  say,  that  is  perhaps  just  as  well, 
for  I  am  not  a  marrying  man,  and  it 
might  be  awkward  to  get  stirred  up  over 
somebody  for  nothing.  Though  possibly 
if  I  happened  to  like  a  girl  as  much  as 
all  that  comes  to,  my  views  might  change. 
That  however  would  n'  t  fill  the  exchequer. 
If  I  had  come  out  West  to  be  sure,  as  Ned 
wanted  me  to,  I  might  have  owned  houses 
and  things  too.  But  I  think,  on  the 
whole,  I  prefer  New  York,  and  as  long  as 
a  few  of  the  Pow-wow  escape  the  ravages 
of  matrimony,  life  must  still  be  pleasant. 

I  was  interested  in  Ned's  confessions, 


96  H  Xtterarg  Gourtsbip 


fragmentary  as  they  were.  I  rather 
hoped  he  would  tell  me  some  more  some 
time.  I  never  pry  into  other  people's 
affairs  however,  but  John  says  that  is  the 
very  reason  they  all  want  to  tell  me  their 
secrets.  John  hzs  noticed  it,  and  he  once 
said  some  very  kind  things  about  it. 
John  is  such  a  good  fellow  !  He  would 
give  the  very  Devil  his  dues  ! 

The  tennis  was  pretty  fair,  though  Ned 
started  me  off  with  some  young  ladies 
and  so  I  did  n't  go  it  quite  so  hard  as  I 
should  have  liked  to. 

When  I  got  home  I  found  John  read 
ing  a  New  York  paper  in  the  office. 

' '  How  was  the  business  talk  ?  "  I  ask 
ed,  as  we  stepped  out  into  the  deserted 
piazza.  It  was  the  dark  end  of  twilight, 
and  a  few  scattered  stars  were  pricking 
through. 

"First  rate,"  said  he. 

"  Did  you  get  any  light  on  the  great 
subject?" 

"Not  a  ray." 

"  Did  you  discuss  the  poems?  " 


Confidences  97 


"Some  of  them." 

' '  What  did  she  have  to  say  about  the 
sonnets  of  Constance  ?  ' ' 

"  Nothing." 

"  Did  n't  they  come  up  ?  " 

"  No.  She  did  n't  mention  them,  and 
I  had  n't  the  cheek." 

"  Oh,  I  say,  Jack  ;  you  might  have  got 
something  out  of  her.  Could  n't  you  tell 
whether  she  took  your  observations  in  a 
personal  spirit?  Women  are  always  so 
personal,  don't  you  know  ?  At  least  that 
is  what  you  literary  fellows  say  about 
them,  though  I  don't  myself  see  how 
they  could  be  much  more  personal  than 
the  rest  of  us  !  But  come,  now,  you  're 
an  observer  of  human  nature.  Could  n't 
you  detect  '  the  personal  element '  ?  " 

"  Stuff,  Dick  !  of  course  it  was  personal 
to  her  !  Whether  she  wrote  the  poems 
or  not,  their  publication  is  all  her  doing. 
I  wish  you  could  have  seen  her  face, 
though,  when  I  told  her  that  Nelson 
Guild  liked  the  poems  and  was  going  to 
notice  them." 


98  a  Xiterarg  Courtsblp 


"  How  did  it  look  ?" 
He  pointed  to  a  bouncing  great  planet 
that  was  shining  away  in  the  west. 
"  It  looked  like  that  star,"  said  he. 

"  When  only  one  is  shining  in  the  sky," 

I  ventured  to  quote  in  a  sentimental 
tone.  He  did  not  object  to  the  amend 
ment  and  I  wished  I  had  not  said  it. 

As  I  look  back  upon  that  time  the 
situation  seems  to  me  more  than  ever 
preposterous.  For  two  grown  men  to  leave 
New  York  in  the  height  of  the  season  and 
travel  two  thousand  miles,  merely  for  the 
sake  of  giving  one  of  them  an  opportunity 
to  fall  in  love  with  a  girl  neither  of  them 
had  ever  seen,  and  one  who,  unless  all 
signs  failed,  was  already  the  unfortunate 
possessor  of  a  broken  heart !  But  geniuses 
are  erratic,  and  if  you  allow  yourself  to  get 
entangled  with  a  genius  you  never  know 
what  you  may  be  led  into. 

Yet  I  may  as  well  say,  right  here,  that 
I,  for  my  part,  had  a  rousing  good  time  of 
it,  with,  tennis  and  riding,  and  lots  of  nice 


Confidences  99 


people,  and  weather  fit  for  a  king.  One 
scarcely  missed  the  Pow-wow  and  the 
German  opera,  and  as  for  clients,  one 
forgot  that  one  had  so  few  to  forget. 


XI. 

A  DILEMMA. 

next  morning  Brunt  went  off  to 
the  tennis  court  with  some  fellows 
he  knew,  while  I  started  up  Pike's  Peak 
Avenue  on  a  shopping  expedition  in 
search  of  a  birthday  present  for  my  sister 
May.  If  I  were  the  hero  of  this  story  I 
should  not  confess  how  fond  I  am  of 
shopping,  but,  as  it  is,  there  can  be  no 
harm  in  owning  that  I  spent  a  good  two 
hours  among  the  Chinese  bric-a-brac  and 
Indian  and  Mexican  curiosities  displayed 
in  the  shops.  I  soon  lighted  upon  a 
pretty  trifle  for  May,  but  meanwhile  I 
had  come  across  a  couple  of  Navajo 


21  Dilemma  101 


blankets  and  some  skins  that  were  not  to 
be  so  easily  disposed  of.  Not  that  I  had 
any  hundred-dollar  bills  to  squander  on 
such  things,  and  it  was  the  hundred-dol 
lar  ones  which  invariably  took  my  fancy  ; 
but  they  were  spread  out  invitingly  and 
one  could  enjoy  them  without  incom 
moding  anybody.  What  took  my  eye 
most  of  all  was  a  royal  Bengal  tiger  skin, 
with  head  and  paws  finely  mounted, 
which  an  enterprising  furrier  had  im 
ported  on  speculation.  He  was  a  splen 
did  fellow — the  tiger,  I  mean, — magnifi 
cently  striped.  He  must  have  been  the 
lord  of  his  jungle,  and  the  more  I  looked 
at  him,  the  more  I  wanted  him  to  belong 
to  John.  I  could  not  conveniently  pur 
chase  him  with  my  unaided  resources, 
but  it  struck  me  that  if  ever  an  occasion 
should  arise  for  the  Pow-wow  to  make 
John  a  present,  this  would  be  the  fellow 
to  choose. 

Finding  it  was  getting  on  toward  noon, 
I  took  leave  of  his  feline  majesty,  and 
strolled  up  the  avenue  toward  the  tennis 


102  a  literary  Courtsbfp 


ground.  Though  the  thermometer  had 
spent  the  night  burrowing  down  well  be 
low  zero,  it  had  arrived  at  less  inhuman 
regions  early  in  the  morning,  and  now, 
at  noon,  the  sun  was  so  strong,  that  I  was 
not  surprised  trr  see  Mrs.  BUerton,  well 
wrapped  up,  sitting  in  a  steamer  chair  on 
her  south  piazza.  It  looked  very  pleas 
ant  there,  and  thinking  that  the  tennis 
would  be  about  over,  I  took  the  opportu 
nity  to  make  my  party  call. 

"This  is  very  good  of  you,  Mr.  Dick- 
son,"  said  the  lady,  coming  forward, 
with  a  pleasant  air  of  welcome,  which 
reminded  me  of  her  niece.  There  is  a 
strong  family  resemblance,  in  spite  of 
their  unlikeness. 

"  Lilian  has  not  come  in  from  riding, 
and  I  am  quite  too  lazy  to  do  anything 
but  sit  in  the  sun  and  be  glad  of  pleasant 
company. ' ' 

"Thanks,"  I  said,  taking  a  chair. 
"  How  surprisingly  warm  the  sun  is." 

I  should  not  report  such  very  com 
monplace  observations,  only  I  fancy  they 


B  Dilemma  103 

give  an  air  of  naturalness  to  the  story, 
and  besides,  if  I  were  to  confine  myself 
exclusively  to  picked  conversations,  it 
would  be  making  us  out  more  brilliant 
than  we  were. 

' '  Your  niece  is  very  fond  of  riding  ?  ' ' 
I  went  on,  in  the  same  vein. 

"  Oh,  very  !  I  was,  myself,  at  her  age, 
though  I  never  had  her  fancy  for  riding 
alone.  She  says  she  does  not  often  find  any 
one  who  is  as  good  company  as  Tiger. ' ' 

"Ah  ha!"  thought  I  to  myself. 
' '  Your  niece  is  communing  with  the 
Muse,  O  unsuspecting  aunt  ! ' ' 

"Has  n't  she  a  dog  ? "  I  asked— 
audibly. 

' '  No,  and  it  is  a  great  pity,  for  she  is 
fond  of  dogs.  She  lost  a  beautiful  Irish 
setter  last  year — poor  Cop  !  (short  for  Cop 
per).  He  was  kicked  by  a  vicious  horse. 
It  was  a  most  distressing  thing.  We  had 
just  come  in  from  driving,  when  the  acci 
dent  occurred.  It  was  beginning  to  rain 
a  little.  Dear  old  Cop  had  been  so  happy, 
running  on  ahead  of  us,  and  scampering 


B  Xiteran?  Courtsbfp 


about  the  fields  after  prairie-dogs  which 
he  never  caught.  I  remember  that  very 
day,  Lilian  said  that  she  did  believe  that 
Cop  knew  as  much  as  grown  folks  !  It 
was  a  passing  horse  that  did  it.  Poor 
Cop  was  flung  to  one  side  of  the  road,  in 
a  dreadful  condition,  and  there  he  lay, 
moaning  like  a  child.  Lilian  was  beside 
him  in  an  instant.  We  saw  that  he  must 
die,  and  she  would  not  have  him  moved. 
We  laid  the  carriage  rug  over  him  to  keep 
the  rain  off,  and  then  she  sat  down  beside 
him,  in  all  the  mud,  and  put  her  hand 
under  his  head,  and  he  stopped  moaning 
and  licked  her  hand.  Poor  fellow !  he 
died  licking  her  hand." 

I  looked  out  upon  the  scene  of  the 
tragedy  with  much  sympathy  as  Mrs. 
Ellerton  rambled  on. 

"She  won't  have  another  dog,  which 
is  a  pity.  I  wanted  to  give  her  one  on 
her  birthday,  soon  after,  but  she  suspected 
my  intention  and  begged  me  not  to  do  so. 
He  was  a  setter  and  quite  as  handsome  as 
Cop — with  even  a  better  pedigree, — but 


S  Dilemma  105 


Lilian  declared  she  did  not  want  a  dog  as 
handsome  as  Cop.  I  told  her  how  fond 
she  would  get  of  him,  and  she  said  that 
was  just  the  trouble.  She  knew  Cop 
would  never  have  loved  another  mistress, 
and  she  did  not  wish  to  love  another  dog, 
for  the  present  at  least.  It  would  be  too 
cold-blooded.  Afterward  she  relented  so 
far  as  to  beg  me  to  buy  him  for  myself. 
She  said  she  would  steel  her  heart  against 
him.  Of  course  I  did  n't  want  him. 
What  should  I  do  with  a  dog?  They 
are  a  great  care." 

"  Don't  you  think  she  would  have  got 
fond  of  him?"  I  asked.  For  this  was 
truly  interesting.  A  girl  who  would  not 
have  another  dog  would  be  just  the  girl 
to  cherish  a  hopeless  affection.  Besides 
which,  here  was  more  circumstantial  evi 
dence  in  the  case.  I  remembered  a  par 
ticularly  taking  poem  "  To  Cop." 

Mrs.  Ellerton  was  saying  :  "  Why,  no  ! 
She  wouldn't  have  allowed  herself  to 
grow  fond  of  the  new  dog.  She  said  she 
wouldn't." 


io6  B  Xfterars  Courtsbfp 


"  Has  she  such  a  strong  will  ?  " 

It  began  to  seem  as  though  the  two 
Ivilians  might  be  a  good  deal  alike. 

' '  Yes,  she  has  a  strong  will,  but  she 
says  she  is  n't  stubborn,  and  I  don't  know 
that  she  is.  Only  she  wont  drive  a  horse 
with  a  check-rein  on.  She  does  not  ap 
prove  of  the  overhead  checks  they  use 
here.  It  is  rather  a  trial  to  me.  I  like 
to  see  a  horse's  head  held  up." 

"She  does  n't  seem  morbid,  either,"  I 
ventured  to  remark,  feeling  somewhat  like 
a  detective. 

"  No,  she  does  n't  seem  morbid  ;  and 
there  she  is,"  Mrs.  Ellerton  added,  as  the 
sound  of  a  horse's  hoofs  caused  her  to 
look  up. 

I  ruminated  a  good  deal  on  that  an 
swer  of  Mrs.  Ellerton's.  Was  it  purposely 
evasive  ?  Did  she  know  about  the  ' '  worm 
i'  the  bud  "  ?  If  not,  why  did  she  mere 
ly  echo  my  words,  instead  of  frankly 
saying  ' '  She  is  not  morbid. ' ' 

For  the  moment  I  had  only  time  to  get 
to  the  block  and  help  the  young  lady 


B  Dilemma  107 


dismount.  She  accepted  my  help  with  a 
delicious  lightness,  as  though  it  might 
amuse  me,  and  could  n't  hurt  her. 

' '  I  have  been  watching  Mr.  Brunt  at 
tennis, ' '  she  said,  as  she  stroked  the  tiger- 
eye  neck,  which  arched  itself  in  grateful 
response. 

' '  How  did  you  like  his  playing  ?  ' ' 

"  lyike  it !  "  she  cried,  with  mock  solem 
nity.  ' '  I  regarded  it  with  fear  and  re 
spect.  ' ' 

"  He  does  play  well,  does  n't  he?  "  I 
asked,  for  I  am  immensely  proud  of  John's 
tennis.  So  different  from  what  you  would 
expect  of  a  literary  man. 

' '  He  plays  to  win  ! ' '  she  said,  and 
then,  laughing  :  "I  trust  I  may  never 
be  called  upon  to  play  against  him." 

"  He  does  serve  like  a  streak  of  light 
ning,"  I  admitted,  "  and  it  is  not  easy  to 
surprise  him." 

Miss  L,amb  disappeared  within  the 
house,  returning  in  a  moment  with  a 
letter  in  her  hand. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  with  a  slight 


its  a  Ztterars  Courtsbip 


hesitation,  "  I  suppose  Miss  I,anib's 
letters  are  forwarded  from  your  office, 
but  it  seems  rather  a  round-about  way 
of  approaching  her,  when  you  are  on  the 
spot.  Would  it  be  asking  too  much  of 
you,  to  forward -this  to  her?  " 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  I  said.  "  It  shall 
go  this  very  day." 

"Thank  you." 

She  handed  me  the  letter  and  then 
stood  striking  her  habit  lightly  with  her 
riding  whip. 

"  Is  Miss  I,amb  at  home  ?  "  she  asked, 
with  an  odd  look  which  I  have  since  re 
called.  "  Will  she  be  likely  to  get  my 
letter  without  delay  ? ' ' 

"She  is  away  from  home  just  now, 
but  I  know  her  address.  There  shall  be 
no  delay." 

"I  am  glad  of  that."  Then,  after  a 
slight  pause  :  "I  was  wondering  how 
soon  I  was  likely  to  have  an  answer. ' ' 

I  made  a  grave  calculation. 

"I  think,"  said  I,  "that  you  might 
have  an  answer  a  little  sooner  than  usual. 


B  Dilemma  109 

say  in  six  days,  if  she  replies  immediately, 
as  she  doubtless  will  do  if  the  letter  is 
important,"— this  with  a  diplomatic 
inflection  which  might  be  taken  as  inter 
rogatory  or  not. 

"It  is  not  exactly  that, ' '  she  said, 
thoughtfully.  Then,  looking  up  with  a 
deprecating  smile,  and  a  pretty  motion  of 
her  head  :  ' '  Oh  no  !  It  is  not  in  the 
least  important.  She  may  not  answer  it 
at  all,  though  I  hope  she  will.  Don't 
you  think  she  will  ?  " 

' '  I  am  sure  of  it ! "  I  cried,  with  effu 
sion.  ' '  I  know  how  much  she  values 
your  letters." 

She  looked  at  me  with  the  same  odd 
smile. 

"  How  well  you  and  Mr.  Brunt  know 
Miss  Lamb! "she  said.  "But  I  must 
go  now  and  dress  for  luncheon.  Perhaps 
you  will  stay.  No  ?  Some  other  time, 
then." 

"  Be  sure  you  don't  forget  my  letter," 
she  called,  over  her  shoulder,  as  she 
stood  in  the  doorway. 


Zfterarg  Courtsbip 


A  riding  habit  is  extremely  becoming 
to  some  women. 

I  do  not  know  why  it  had  not  occurred 
to  me  that  I  should  be  asked  to  forward 
that  letter,  for  of  course  nothing  could  be 
more  natural.  But  the  possibility  had 
not  entered  my  head,  and  as  I  walked 
back  to  the  hotel  with  the  thing  in  my 
pocket  I  did  not  feel  at  all  easy  in  my 
mind.  Somehow  when  the  letters  were 
coming  in  due  course  of  mail,  addressed 
to  that  well-known  personage,  Lilian 
Leslie  Lamb,  I  had  handed  them  over  to 
John  without  the  least  compunction — 
even  the  occasional  ones  from  Miss  Lamb. 
To  all  intents  and  purposes  he  was  Miss 
Lamb,  for  the  letters  were  intended  for 
the  author  of  Spoils. 

Now,  however,  the  case  was  quite  dif 
ferent,  as  anybody  must  see.  As  I  thought 
of  it  I  grew  hot  and  cold,  and  cursed  my 
own  idiocy  for  deliberately  setting  such  a 
trap  for  myself.  I  was  in  such  a  muddle 
over  the  whole  thing  by  the  time  I  got  to 
the  hotel  that  I  decided  not  to  say  any- 


B  Dilemma  m 

thing  to  Brunt  about  it  till  I  had  got  my 
own  ideas  straightened  out  a  little.  How 
ever,  by  the  time  luncheon  was  over,  and 
we  were  sitting,  the  sole  occupants  of  the 
smoking-room,  I  had  decided  that,  though 
I  had  got  Jack  into  the  scrape,  he  would 
have  to  get  himself  out  of  it.  So  with  as 
indifferent  an  air  as  I  could  muster,  I  said  : 

"  By  the  way,  John,  here  's  a  letter  for 
the  author  of  Spoils."  He  took  it  and 
glanced  at  the  superscription. 

' '  The  Devil  ! ' '  said  he,  with  a  very  red 
face. 

' '  The  writer  would  be  flattered  if  she 
could  hear  you,"  said  I. 

' '  I  wonder  how  she  would  feel  if  she 
could  see  us  both,"  John  retorted,  and  he 
looked  from  the  back  of  the  letter  to  me  in 
a  very  fierce  manner.  Then,  tossing  the 
letter  across  the  table,  he  said  :  "  Well, 
it  is  your  affair  this  time  and  not  mine, 
I  'm  thankful  to  say.  What  are  you  going 
to  do  with  the  thing  ?  " 

"Do  with  it?  I've  done  with  it," 
said  I. 


literacy  Gourtsbfp 


"  You  wont  leave  it  there  on  the  table, 
I  suppose. ' ' 

' '  I  have  delivered  it  to  the  person  to 
whom  it  is  addressed." 

"  Is  it  addressed  to  me  ?  ' ' 

"  It  is  addressed  to  the  author  of  Spoils. 
If  the  author  of  Spoils  is  not  the.  dream 
of  beauty  you  described  to  her  namesake 
that  is  your  look-out  not  mine.  Seriously, 
Jack,  I  don't  see  but  that  you  've  got  to 
read  the  letter.  She  evidently  expects  an 
answer  to  it.  Either  that,"  I  added,  "  or 
make  a  clean  breast  of  it. ' ' 

The  "either,  or"  is  usually  John's 
method,  but  this  time  it  did  not  seem  to 
appeal  to  him.  It  must  be  confessed,  too, 
that  his  adviser  was  rather  half-hearted  in 
his  counsel.  So  we  beat  about  the  bush 
in  an  unsatisfactory  manner,  till  suddenly 
John  seized  a  pen  and  cut  the  gordian 
knot,  so  to  speak,  by  filling  out  the 
address  : 

"  Care  F.  DICKSON,  Esq.,  etc., 

"  New  York." 


B  Dilemma  113 


"There,"  said  he,  eying  his  handi 
work  with  a  look  of  relief.  ' '  Perhaps 
when  it  comes  back  postmarked  and 
smutched  by  contamination  with  the  mail- 
bags  I  may  know  what  to  do  with  it,  but 
I  '11  be  blessed  if  I  could  break  the  seal 
of  that  spotless  envelope  to  save  my  soul." 

And  he  marched  forth  to  post  it  with 
his  own  hand. 

That  was  after  all  the  best  solution  for 
the  time  being,  and  we  both  felt  that  a 
weight  had  been  lifted  from  our  minds. 


XII. 

HER   CAfiON. 

\ 

COR  a  few  days  we  did  not  see  as  much 
of  Miss  L,amb  as  John,  for  one, 
would  have  liked.  We  found  we  knew 
a  good  many  people,  and  there  were 
dinners  and  picnics  and  tennis  galore. 
Sometimes  we  met  Miss  Lamb  on  these 
occasions,  and  sometimes  we  did  not,  but 
even  when  she  was  of  the  party  she  was 
usually  taken  possession  of  by  people  who 
seemed  to  think  they  had  a  prior  claim. 


1>er  Canon  us 

One  night  there  was  a  heavy  fall  of 
snow  and.  the  next  morning,  the  sun 
was  shining  like  mad  and  all  the  world 
was  glittering  white.  The  mountains 
were  much  improved  by  this  dispensation, 
and  though  the  snow  in  the  streets  had 
vanished  by  noon,  and  the  foothills  soon 
shook  it  off,  the  high  mountains  were 
not  so  bare  after  that,  and  the  nightcap 
had  turned  into  a  superb  snowy  canopy 
which  was  immensely  becoming  to  Pike's 
Peak. 

We  had  promised  Miss  L<amb  not  to 
visit  North  Cheyenne  Canon  until  she 
should  give  us  leave.  She  said,  when 
we  first  came,  that  there  was  too  much 
ice  for  a  comfortable  ride,  and,  as  she 
justly  observed,  one  could  not  appreciate 
nature  with  one's  thoughts  all  bent  upon 
one's  horse's  feet. 

The  snow  having  blanketed  the  ice 
and  rendered  the  road  passable,  we  took 
advantage  of  the  favorable  circumstance, 
and  one  morning  soon  after,  we  found 
ourselves  cantering,  I  and  the  two  Lilians, 


n6  a  TLfterarg  Courtsbip 


through  the  town  and  out  toward  Chey 
enne  Mountain.  It  was  an  exhilarating 
ride  in  the  frosty  air,  with  the  sun  blazing 
upon  our  backs  and  the  buttresses  of 
Cheyenne  frowning  down  more  and  more 
superbly  as  we  approached  them. 

"  Mr.  Dickson  told  me  of  your  Indian 
war-whoop  out  on  the  plains,"  Miss 
L,amb  said,  as  we  rode  along  three 
abreast.  "  I  know  just  how  you  felt 
when  you  did  it." 

"Try  it  yourself  some  time,"  said  John. 
"  It  will  do  you  lots  of  good." 

"  Oh,  no  !  That  is  one  of  a  woman's 
disabilities.  If  I  were  to  try  to  shout, 
the  result  would  be  a  shriek.  Women 
are  always  in  danger  of  doing  some 
thing  shrill  if  they  allow  themselves  the 
slightest  intensity." 

' '  Yes,  a  '  slight  intensity '  might  be 
shrill,"  John  admitted  with  a  laugh. 
"Did  you  ever  run  across  anything  so 
phenomenal  ? ' ' 

"Indeed  I  have,"  she  rejoined,  good- 
humoredly.  "It  is  the  most  common 


t>er  Canon  117 

form  of  weakness.  Have  you  never  met 
with  it?" 

' '  You  convince  me  that  I  have, ' '  said 
John,  who  is  always  delighted  if  he  can 
get  anybody  to  talk  in  riddles  to  him. 
"  Is  it  not  a  characteristic  of  L,ila  Jean 
ia  Spoils?" 

"Precisely,"  she  agreed.  Then  turn 
ing  to  me  :  ' '  That  was  rather  well 
parried,  don't  you  think?  Henceforth 
'  slightly  intense  '  is  promoted  from  the 
level  of  bad  English  to  that  of  an  elaborate 
theory." 

1 '  Speaking  of  Spoils, ' '  she  said  later, 
as  the  horses  fell  into  a  walk,  "you 
have  never  told  me,  Mr.  Brunt,  how  you 
like  the  book.  " 

"  I  think  it  an  unusually  strong  novel. 
Do  not  you? " 

' '  Oh,  there  can  be  no  doubt  about 
that." 

' '  But  you  do  not  altogether  like  it  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  think  I  do.  Yes,  I  like  the 
book  very  much  indeed.  I  am  not  sure 
that  Maud  is  not  my  favorite  heroine. 


a  Xtterari?  Courtsbfp 


It  is  Lansinge  whom  I  am  not  quite 
reconciled  to." 

"Why  not?" 

' '  I  suppose,  because  he  is  not  enough 
of  a  hero  to  suit  my  romantic  notions." 

' '  He  is  surely  the  central  figure  of  the 
book.  I  think  myself  he  is  the  best-con 
ceived  character  in  it." 

' '  That  may  be.  Indeed ,  I  am  sure  it 
is.  But  he  is  not  straightforward  enough 
for  my  taste. ' ' 

' '  He  does  finesse,  I  grant  you.  But  he 
is  never  dishonorable." 

"Dishonorable?  Oh,  no  !  There  are 
many  degrees  between  dishonorableness 
and  the  sort  of  transcendent  integrity  one 
requires  in  a  hero.  I  suppose  L,ansinge 
is  pretty  honest  as  men  go.  I  mean 
humans  in  general— and — here  is  the 
canon." 

We  had  been  walking  our  horses  for 
some  time  through  the  snow  which  was 
deep  in  the  shade  of  the  evergreens.  The 
entrance  to  the  canon  was  not  so  marked 
as  to  be  fixed  at  any  one  point,  but  at 


fjcr  Canon  119 

Miss  Lamb's  word  a  sort  of  hush  seemed 
to  descend  upon  us,  much  as  though  we 
had  entered  one  of  those  solemn  old 
cathedrals  in  South  Germany.  The  road 
was  narrow,  so  that  we  soon  went  single 
file.  Miss  1/amb  led  the  way,  her  horse 
making  the  first  marks  in  the  unbroken 
snow.  Not  strictly  the  first  marks,  how^ 
ever,  for  soon  our  guide  turned  aad 
pointed  out  to  us  the  tiny  footprints  of 
little  creatures  who  had  crossed  the  open 
space  in  search  of  water  from  the  ice- 
thatched  brook.  Some  of  them  we 
thought  must  have  been  coyotes,  the 
tracks  being  as  large  as  a  child's  shoe. 
But  oftener  the  little  marks  suggested 
rabbits  and  squirrels,  timid,  furry  bits 
of  wild  life,  the  thought  of  whose  bright 
eyes  and  quick,  sensitive  motions  seemed 
to  animate  the  lonely  scene.  Once  in  a 
while  we  came  to  a  bridge  over  the  frozen 
brook,  whose  course  the  road  followed. 
In  the  shadow  of  the  gigantic  gray  and 
red  walls  on  whose  perpendicular  heights 
there  was  no  chance  for  the  snow  to  cling, 


B  Ufterarg  Courtsbfp 


the  network  of  leafless  bushes,  bending 
over  the  brook,  was  glittering  with  ice, 
while  the  branches  of  the  blue-green  fir- 
trees,  drooped  beneath  their  feathery 
burden.  The  way  those  walls  towered 
up  above  it  all  was  astonishing,  with  the 
sky  like  a  blue  roof  spanning  the  interval. 

I  rode  last,  and  it  was  pretty  to  see  the 
other  horses  winding  on  ahead.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  ever  saw  a  woman  ride  so 
well  as  Miss  Lamb.  If  you  notice,  lots 
of  women  make  a  good  appearance  when 
the  horse  canters  or  trots.  When  the 
motion  is  marked  they  get  going  with  it 
very  well.  But  there  was  a  litheness  about 
Miss  Lamb's  figure,  even  when  the  horse 
was  laboring  up  hill  with  his  head  hang 
ing,  which  was  rhythmic  as  music. 

After  a  while  we  came  to  a  widening  of 
the  canon,  where  a  cloisteral  group  of 
trees  made  a  natural  resting-place,  l^ere 
our  guide  turned  and  waited  for  us.  She 
had  a  brilliant  color  which  quite  flashed 
upon  one,  after  having  watched  her  dark 
hair  and  habit  so  long.  At  the  moment 


*er  Canon  121 

I  could  not  but  admit  that  there  was 
something  incongruous  in  the  supposi 
tion  that  she  was  the  author  of  those 
metrical  laments. 

"Your  canon  is  very  fine,"  said  John, 
lifting  his  hat  in  chivalrous  style. 

' '  I  am  glad  to  see  that  you  acknowl 
edge  my  ownership,"  she  responded, 
gaily.  ' '  I  took  formal  possession  here 
long  ago." 

"  It  is  good  of  you  to  admit  the  general 
public,"  said  I. 

"  It  is  only  the  initiated  who  ever  really 
get  in,"  she  replied.  "But  those  who 
are  kept  out  do  not  know  it. ' ' 

"  I  wonder  whether  we  are  in  ?  "  John 
queried. 

"  At  least  you  know  it  if  you  are  not !  " 

"Oh!  Brunt's  in,  fast  enough,"  said 
I.  ' '  You  can  see  that  at  a  glance.  But 
seriously,  Miss  Lamb,  this  is  mighty  fine. 
Can  we  •go  any  farther  ?  ' ' 

"  Won't  you  let  me  go  ahead  ?  "  John 
begged,  as  we  put  our  horses  in  motion. 
"There  were  some  places  back  there 


&  Xfteran?  Courtship 


where  I  did  n't  enjoy  seeing  you  feel  your 
way." 

"Very  well.  I  will  try  to  be  more 
philosophical,  and  to  take  pleasure  in  any 
perils  which  may  threaten  you.  But 
don't  try  to  keep  in  too  close  to  the  wall. 
There  is  a  treacherous  slant  in  the  road." 

"  Thanks.  I  will  court  destruction  on 
the  outer  verge.  Will  you  engage,  if  I 
go  over,  to  watch  the  catastrophe  with  a 
'slight  intensity  '?" 

' '  I  will  engage  that  you  do  not  go  over. 
It  is  not  Mr.  Brunt's  way  to  go  over  preci 
pices  ;  is  it,  Mr.  Dickson  ?  ' ' 

"Not  usually.  But  there  might  be  a 
first  time." 

This  part  of  the  canon  was  as  wild,  but 
not  nearly  as  solemn  as  the  other,  and  we 
got  quite  sociable  again.  We  passed  a 
waterfall,  which  made  a  bold  plunge  into 
a  rocky  basin  below  us.  The  two  Lilians 
stopped  to  examine  it  at  rather  an  unfor 
tunate  spot  for  me,  as  it  obliged  my  horse 
to  linger  on  an  ugly  shelf  where  his  hind 
leg  kept  slipping  out,  and  I  felt  myself  in 


t)er  Canon  123 

danger  of  making  a  more  intimate  ac 
quaintance  than  I  wished,  with  said 
waterfall.  But  just  as  we  were  about  to 
descend  gracefully,  hind  quarters  fore 
most,  into  the  abysm,  Miss  I,amb,  turn 
ing  to  speak  to  me,  saw  my  predicament, 
and  crying,  ' '  Go  on,  quick,  Mr.  Brunt, ' ' 
touched  up  her  horse,  kindly  giving  me 
another  chance  of  life. 

"  Why  didn't  you  tell  us  to  go  on?  " 
she  asked,  reproachfully,  when  we  were 
on  safe  ground  again. 

"  I  could  n't  be  so  rude,"  said  I. 

' '  What  was  the  matter,  Dick  ?  Were 
we  in  your  way  ?  "  asked  John. 

"Not  in  the  least,"  I  replied.  "  It  was 
the  wall  of  the  canon  that  was  incommod 
ing  me." 

I  always  make  a  point  of  appearing 
especially  nonchalant  when  my  heart  is 
in  my  mouth. 

The  descent  was  just  a  little  less  exhil 
arating  than  the  ride  up,  but  altogether 
it  was  a  fine  trip,  and  when  we  were  can 
tering  again,  three  abreast,  toward  the 


B  ILiterarg  Courtsbfp 


town,  we  all  agreed  that  it  had  been  a 
success,  and  that  we  would  have  another 
ride  soon. 

"Unless  we  disturb  your  tete-&-tete" 
I  suggested,  with  a  glance  at  the  tiger-eye 
head  and  neck. 

' '  Oh  !  Aunt  Bessie  has  been  telling 
tales,"  cried  Miss  Lamb.  "  It  is  n't  often 
that  Tiger  and  his  mistress  get  a  chance 
to  play  the  guide — to  two  such  apprecia 
tive  tourists, ' '  she  added  politely. 

"  Dick,"  said  John,  thoughtfully,  after 
we  had  left  Miss  L,amb  at  her  gate,  "do 
you  think  Miss  I/amb  would  consider  us 
models  of  '  transcendent  integrity  '  ?  " 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  I,  "  That  was 
her  definition  of  a  hero.  I  had  no  idea 
you  were  so  ambitious. ' ' 

"  I  am  ambitious  of  common  honesty," 
he  replied,  with  some  warmth,  "  and  I  be 
gin  to  feel  remarkably  like  a  pickpocket. ' ' 

"  Rubbish,  Jack  !  You  are  all  right! 
Don't  go  bothering  your  head  about  the 
romantic  notions  of  a  highstrung  poetess 
and  blighted  being." 


f>er  Caiion  12^ 

"I  don't  more  than  half  believe  that 
Miss  lyamb  is  a  poetess.  If  she  is,  she  is 
an  uncommonly  good  one,  and  she  is  not 
the  kind  of  woman  whom  it  is  altogether 
pleasant  to  be  playing  tricks  upon.  Con 
found  that  novel !  I  wish  I  had  never 
written  it." 

It  was  like  Jack  to  confound  the  novel, 
and  not  his  ' '  experiment ' '  ;  but  I  merely 
called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that,  if  he 
had  not  written  the  novel,  he  would  never 
have  ridden  up  Cheyenne  Caiion  with 
Miss  L,amb — and  me — and  then  I  left  him 
at  the  livery  stable  and  went  and  took 
another  look  at  the  Bengal  tiger  before 
luncheon.  In  those  days  of  dawning 
insecurity  about  John,  it  was  always  a 
solace  to  commune  with  the  Bengal  tiger. 
It  would  be  such  a  peculiarly  fitting  gift 
if  the  occasion  should  arise,  that  the 
thought  of  it  was  superficially  soothing 
to  my  gravest  apprehensions. 


XIII. 

AN  AUTO-DA-FE;. 

'T'HB  days  went  pleasantly  by,  and  it  be 
gan  to  seem  so  natural  to  be  in  Colo 
rado  that  I  could  almost  understand  Ned 
Randall's  preferring  opulence  there  to 
penury  in  New  York.  Almost,  but  not 
quite.  Every  little  while  a  Pow-wow  letter 
would  strike  a  chord,  or  an  item  in  a  New 
York  paper  would  break  the  spell,  and  I 
would  find  my  thoughts  reverting  fondly 
to  a  certain  dingy  old  den  in  the  midst  of 
the  hubbub,  and  I  knew  that  I  should  be 
ready  enough  to  return  to  my  native  pav- 
ingstones  when  the  time  came. 


Bn  Buto=£>a=3Fe  127 


Among  the  letters  arriving  for  rne  and 
my  Lilian,  I  had  almost  forgotten  to  look 
for  that  fateful  one  which  had  caused  us 
such  embarrassment.  But  one  evening 
when  John  and  I  came  up  from  playing 
billiards,  we  found  it  in  my  room,  staring 
us  in  the  face.  John  had  evidently  been 
less  obli vious  of  the  impending  crisis  than 
I,  for  he  was  prepared  for  it. 

"And  now  what  are  you  going  to  do 
with  it  ?  "  I  asked,  feeling  that  he  must 
be  quite  up  a  tree. 

"  There  is  only  one  thing  to  do,"  said 
he,  eying  it  distrustfully,  as  though  he 
expected  it  to  break  its  own  seal  and  un 
fold  itself  to  his  unwilling  sight ;  and  he 
pulled  a  match  out  of  his  pocket. 

"  Is  n't  that  rather  a  high-handed  pro 
ceeding?  "  I  asked,  in  some  trepidation. 

"Better  be  high-handed  than  under 
handed,"  he  declared,  and  forthwith  he 
struck  a  match,  lighted  a  corner  of  the 
envelope  and  put  it  into  the  empty  grate. 
The  paper  turned  brown  and  curled  up  a 
little  and  then  the  flame  went  out. 


128  B  literary  Courtsbip 


"  Try  again,  Jack,"  said  I ;  "  the  evi 
dences  of  crime  are  not  so  easily  disposed 
of." 

This  time  the  flame  licked  its  way  over  to 
the  sealing  wax,  which  sizzled  and  blazed 
up  for  a  moment,  and  then  out  she  went 
again,  leaving  an  ugly  smutch  in  the 
grate. 

"  I  say,  Jack,  this  is  grewsome.  It 
reminds  a  fellow  of  all  the  detective 
stories  he  ever  read.  I  '11  bet  a  dime  you 
won't  succeed  in  burning  that  all  up. 
The  infallible  clue  will  be  found  lurking 
in  a  swallow's  nest  in  the  chimney,  and 
your  crime  will  be  proclaimed  from  the 
housetops — literally. ' ' 

"  It  isn't  the  right  shape  to  burn,"  he 
muttered,  without  a  flicker  of  a  smile  at 
my  little  sally.  John  has  such  a  way  of 
getting  absorbed  in  what  he  is  about 
that  he  loses  a  good  deal !  He  had  taken 
out  his  pocket-knife  and  was  now  gravely 
cutting  the  envelope  with  its  contents 
into  strips  an  inch  wide,  which  he 
placed  crosswise  on  top  of  each  other 


an 


John  flung  his  scruples  to  the  winds, 
snatched  the  paper,  and  read  the  fol 
lowing  blood-curdling  fragment — "not 
but  admire  his  beautiful  self-confidence, 
though  it " 

"Now  don't  you  wish  you  hadn't 
burned  it  up?"  I  cried,  much  tickled. 

' ';  Pooh  ! ' '  said  he,  with  pretended 
indifference.  ' '  Nobody  knows  whom 
she  was  writing  about  ";  and  without 
reading  what  was  written  on  the  other 
side  of  the  strip,  he  tore  the  paper  up 
into  microscopic  fractions. 

"Perhaps  it  was  Benny  Mortimer,"  I 
suggested. 

Benny  was  a  meek  little  man,  who 
blushed  when  he  was  spoken  to. 

' '  There  are  worse  things  than  self- 
confidence,"  John  declared,  as  he  held 
the  door-handle,  ' '  I  wish  I  had  a  little 
more  myself."  And  with  this  rash  and 
startling  assertion,  he  went  off  down  the 
corridor,  to  his  own  roost. 

John  has  his  faults  like  the  rest  of 
us,  but  I  had  never  suspected  him  of 


132  B  fcfterarg  Courtship 


being  self-distrustful.  No  reason  why 
he  should  be,  as  far  as  that  goes.  He 
has  always  carried  everything  before 
him.  The  only  wonder  is,  that  he  keeps 
his  relish  for  life  when  it  goes  so  easily. 
I  never  realized  how  unspoiled  he  was 
by  his  invariable  good  luck,  until  I  wit 
nessed  the  boyish  and  headlong  way  in 
which  he  fell  in  love.  Poor  old  Jack  ! 
He  never  does  anything  by  halves,  and 
much  as  I  regretted  the  catastrophe  I 
felt  that  I  never  should  forgive  Miss 
L,amb  if  she  disappointed  him. 

I  remember  asking  John  once,  a  year 
or  two  before  this,  how  it  happened  that 
he  had  never  been  in  love. 

"  Bless  you,  Dick,"  he  said,  with  that 
patronizing  air  he  occasionally  takes  on, 
"what  a  babe  you  are!  I've  been  in 
love  lots  of  times. ' '  Then  settling  back 
in  his  leathern  arm-chair,  and  stretching 
his  legs  comfortably,  he  added  :  "  Only  I 
could  never  manage  to  stay  in  long 
enough  to  make  it  necessary  to  give 
myself  away." 


133 


I  knew,  however,  from  the  beginning 
that  this  was  a  different  matter  alto 
gether.  Poor  old  Jack  !  I  could  hardly 
sleep  for  thinking  of  the  look  in  his  eyes 
when  he  stood  there  with  the  door-handle 
in  his  hand. 


XIV. 

AT  CROSS   PURPOSES. 

OR  the  next  few  days  I  hardly  knew 
Brunt.  He  was  depressed  and  out 
of  sorts,  not  to  say  out  of  temper.  John 
is  always  rather  breezy,  but  I  never 
before  nor  since  knew  him  to  be  irrita 
ble.  When  his  friends  are  aggravating 
he  laughs  at  them,  and  if  other  people 
are  bothersome  he  turns  his  back,  which 
is  a  good  broad  one. 

"What's  the  matter,  Jack?"  said  I, 
one  day.  ' '  You  seem  out  of  sorts.  Is 
it  because  you  haven't  been  up  Pike's 


Cross  purposes  135 


Peak  according  to  your  original  pro 
gramme  ? ' ' 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "I  always  hate  to 
have  heights  continually  before  my  eyes 
that  I  can't  climb." 

"  But  you  might  go  up  if  you  liked," 
said  I,  ready  to  humor  him. 

"Yes,  and  get  frozen  to  death  at  the 
top.  Thanks,  it  does  n't  tempt  me." 

' '  Did  you  ever  hear  of  any  one  getting 
frozen  to  death  up  there? " 

' '  No,  but  I  have  an  idea  that  the 
summit  is  strewn  with  corpses." 

It  always  refreshes  Jack  to  talk  in 
riddles,  and  when  they  are  transparent 
enough  for  my  comprehension,  I  some 
times  join  in.  A  vision  of  Ned  and 
Benny  frozen  stiff  in  characteristic  atti 
tudes  in  the  ' '  lucidity  "  of  a  certain  high 
altitude  visited  my  imagination,  and  a 
sympathetic  shiver  accompanied  it. 

We  were  to  start  for  New  York  soon 
after  Christmas  and  I  began  to  think 
John  was  likely  to  be  poor  company  on 
the  journey.  He  had  got  absurdly  morbid 


136  H  Xiterarg  Courtsbip 


on  the  subject  of  that  letter.  I  believe 
he  tried  two  or  three  times  to  confess  to 
Miss  Lamb,  though  it  went  sadly  against 
the  grain.  I  think,  myself,  that  a  twen 
tieth  edition  would  have  loosened  his 
tongue  ;  yet  I  must  say,  in  justice  to  him, 
that  Miss  Lamb  was  partly  responsible 
for  his  ill  success.  She  had  the  most 
singular  way  of  warding  off  confidences. 
I  remember  one  occasion  in  particular 
when  she  turned  the  conversation  so 
effectually  that  it  would  have  been  im 
possible  to  go  on. 

It  was  two  or  three  days  after  our 
solemn  auto-da-fe,  and  we  were  picnicking 
with  a  party  of  people  at  Monument 
Park.  By  rare  good  luck  John  and  I 
had  got  Miss  Lamb  to  ourselves,  a  little 
apart  from  the  rest  of  the  crowd,  in 
a  warm,  sunny  hollow,  at  the  foot  of 
one  of  those  huge  yellow  monsters  in 
stone  with  hats  on  their  heads.  Miss 
Lamb  and  I  were  making  an  amicable 
exchange  of  a  very  plump  quail  in  return 
for  a  glass  of  claret,  when  she  suddenly 


Ht  Cross  purposes  137 


asked  me  why,  I  supposed,  Miss  I^amb 
did  not  answer  her  letter. 

' '  Have  you  had  no  answer  yet  ?  "  I 
asked  in  feigned  surprise,  trying  to  gain 
time  for  invention. 

"  Not  a  word,"  she  said,  "and  I  begin 
to  think  that  you  were  mistaken  in  sup 
posing  that  she  wanted  to  hear  from  me." 

' '  I  suppose, ' '  said  I,  ' '  there  must  have 
been  some  error  in  the  address,  either  on 
her  part  or  mine. ' ' 

"  Miss  L,amb,"  John  began,  visibly 
bracing  himself  for  the  effort.  ' '  I  have 
something  to  tell  you  about  the  author  of 
Spoils." 

' '  Oh,  please  not ! ' '  she  cried,  in  mock 
dismay.  "I  really  don't  want  to  hear 
anything  more  about  her.  I  know  just 
enough  to  make  her  interesting. ' ' 

"  But  it  is  something  I  must  tell  you," 
John  began  again. 

' '  Stop  a  minute,  please.  I  will  listen 
to  you  only  on  one  condition.  Are  you 
sure  that  what  you  wish  to  tell  me  will 
not  diminish  my  interest  in  her  ?  " 


B  Xfterarg  Courtsbip 


"I  think  it  will  increase  it,"  said  I, 
anxious  to  help  John. 

"  But  shall  I  admire  her  as  much  as 
ever  ?  Are  you  perfectly  sure  you  would 
not  destroy  an  ideal  ?  It  is  so  seldom  that 
one  has  a  full-fledged  ideal  to  satisfy  one's 
imagination  with.  Are  you  perfectly 
sure  that  what  Mr.  Brunt  is  going  to  tell 
me  will  not  disturb  that  ?  ' ' 

"I  am  afraid  it  may,"  said  the  undi 
plomatic  John,  ' '  but — ' ' 

"Then  I  positively  refuse  to  listen." 
And  would  you  be  so  kind  as  to  get  me 
a  glass  of  water,  Mr.  Brunt  ?    Your  wine 
is  delicious,  but  it  does  not  take  the  place 
of  water." 

Before  John  returned  with  the  water 
some  of  the  other  picnickers  had  joined 
our  little  party  and  the  time  for  disclos 
ures  was  past. 

Very  much  the  same  thing  happened 
on  several  occasions  which  John  reported. 
It  seemed  to  be  a  caprice  of  Miss  Lamb's 
to  hear  nothing  more  about  her  name 
sake.  Once,  indeed,  when  we  were  call 


at  Cross  purposes 


ing  upon  them  and  Mrs.  Kllerton  opened 
the  subject,  her  niece  interfered  so  reso 
lutely,  that  I  began  to  wonder  whether 
pique  had  not  something  to  do  with  it. 
Was  she  offended  at  having  received  no 
answer  to  her  letter  ?  Or — a  sudden  light 
burst  in  upon  me — was  she  jealous  of  her 
gifted  namesake.  The  latter  suspicion 
I  ventured  to  impart  to  John,  who 
promptly  demolished  me. 

"  Why  on  earth  should  Miss  Lamb  be 
jealous  of  anybody  under  heaven?  "  he 
demanded.  ' '  I  think  you  must  have 
been  reading  dime  novels,  Dick." 

"Then  why  won't  she  hear  the  name 
mentioned  ?  " 

' '  She  is  tired  to  death  of  it,  as  I  am  ! 
Hang  it  all!" 

As  I  said  before,  John  was  very  unlike 
himself. 

To  make  matters  worse,  a  little  thing 
happened  about  that  time  to  stir  him  all 
up  again  about  the  authorship  of  the 
poems.  Having  borrowed  some  current 
magazines  from  Miss  L,amb,  we  were  sit- 


i4o  S  XtteratB  Courtsblp 

ting  one  evening  in  my  room,  turning 
them  over,  when  I  came  across  a  sheet  of 
paper  on  which  there  were  three  verses 
written  in  pencil  in  Miss  L,amb's  hand. 
Considering  poetry  to  be  public  property, 
I  glanced  over  the  verses,  which  rejoiced 
in  the  hilarious  title  of  "A  Plaint." 
They  were  not  so  harrowing  as  some  of 
their  predecessors,  to  be  sure,  yet  they 
were  hardly  calculated  to  have  an  exhil 
arating  effect  upon  John.  He  had  about 
succeeded  in  convincing  himself  that  the 
"  friend  "  was  genuine,  that  appearances 
were  not  deceitful,  that  the  girl  of  his 
choice  was  not  a  blighted  being.  This, 
although  there  was  so  much  evidence  of 
the  poems  having  been  written  in  Colo 
rado  Springs  and  by  some  one  sharing 
all  Miss  I^amb's  personal  interests,  that 
he  was  almost  driven  to  accept  the  "  un 
enterprising  "  Mrs.  BUerton's  authorship 
as  the  sole  alternative.  And  here  was 
Miss  I/amb  herself — no  mistaking  the 
author  this  time — still  fondly  and  mourn 
fully  contemplating  the  fragments  of  a 


Ht  Cross  purposes 


broken  heart.  It  would  perhaps  have 
been  kinder  to  suppress  my  discovery, 
but  such  magnanimity  was  beyond  me, 
and  I  cried  : 

1 '  I,ook  here,  John.  Here 's  a  clincher  [ 
No  question  about  this  anyhow.  See, 
she  has  corrected  two  of  the  lines.  Dated 
on  the  loth  of  December  too,"  I  went  on, 
as  he  began  reading  the  verses.  ' '  A 
week  after  our  arrival.  By  Jove  !  Wo 
men  are  deep  ! ' ' 

While  I  was  endeavoring  to  reconcile 
my  memory  of  Miss  I/amb's  cheerful 
countenance  with  the  graveyard  phan 
tasy  I  had  just  read,  John  was  spending 
more  time  than  seemed  strictly  necessary, 
in  perusing  the  verses.  By  the  time  he 
had  got  through,  his  face  looked  pretty 
black,  and  he  said,  in  a  peculiar,  jarring 
voice : 

"  I  don't  know,  Dick,  whether  to  be 
more  proud  of  the  way  in  which  we  have 
deceived  Miss  I^amb  about  ourselves,  or 
of  the  manner  in  which  we  have  suc 
ceeded  in  prying  into  her  private  affairs, 


142  B  ILtterarB  Couct6bfp 


Anyhow  I  am  going  to  bed.  Good 
night !" 

He  departed,  carrying  the  paper  off 
with  him. 

The  next  morning  he  asked  me  if  I 
did  not  think  we  had  been  in  Colorado 
about  long  enough,  and  we  agreed  to 
start  for  home  on  the  26th. 


XV. 

EPISODES. 

'T'HE  day  on  which  we  fixed  our  plan 
for  departure  was  the  22d,  and  we 
had  promised  Randall  to  come  up  to  the 
polo  ground  and  see  the  first  game  of  the 
season.  We  were  rather  late  in  arriving, 
and  we  found  a  gay  crowd  collected  at 
one  corner  of  the  ground.  It  was  a 
mighty  pretty  sight.  The  wide,  level 
field  just  out  of  the  town,  with  red- and 
blue-capped  riders  tearing  about  after 
the  balls,  and  cutting  sudden  and  impos 
sible  angles  on  their  stocky  little  ponies  ; 
the  bright-colored  flags  flying  from  the 


144  B  Xiterarg  Gourtsbip 


poles,  and  the  groups  of  pretty  turn-outs 
with  well-dressed  people  looking  on. 
There  were  lots  of  riders,  too,  among  the 
spectators,  so  that  there  was  no  lack  of 
life  and  movement  outside  the  grounds, 
as  these  free  lances  passed  from  village- 
cart  to  buckboard,  from  buckboard  to 
victoria,  paying  their  respects  to  the  pros 
perous-looking  occupants.  The  moun 
tains  appeared  very  big  that  morning, 
brooding,  in  grandfatherly  fashion,  over 
the  gambols  of  man  and  beast. 

We  soon  discovered  Miss  Lamb  on 
horseback  standing  near  a  victoria  in 
which  her  aunt  was  seated  with  their 
neighbor  Mrs.  Brown,  and  her  little  two- 
year-old  child.  Benny  Mortimer,  also  on 
horseback,  seemed  to  be  acting  as  escort, 
and  we  were  about  to  brave  Benny's 
blushing  displeasure,  by  joining  the 
party,  when  the  baby  in  the  victoria 
began  to  wail,  at  the  same  time  putting 
up  its  little  hands  to  Miss  Lamb.  As 
we  rode  nearer,  Miss  Lamb  was  saying  : 
"Rosamund  wants  a  ride.  Why  won't 


Bpfso&es  145 

you  let  me  take  her  home  ?  I  was  just 
going." 

The  child  seemed  to  perceive  her  ad 
vantage,  and  her  cries  became  more 
vociferous  and  more  unintelligible  than 
before. 

"But  were  you  really  going ?  "  asked 
the  mother. 

"  Indeed  I  was,  and  am.  Do  let 
me  take  her.  We  should  both  enjoy  it 
so  much  ;  and  you  will  never  be  able  to 
leave  the  field  till  the  '  blues '  have  won." 

' '  She  is  a  naughty,  fretful  baby,  but, 
if  you  want  to  spoil  her  you  may.  I  sup 
pose  it  is  all  a  jumble  to  her  poor  little 
head,  and  she  probably  does  not  know 
whether  her  '  dee  papa '  is  a  red  or  a 
blue," — and  then  with  a  most  astounding 
confidence  this  rash  mother  resigned  her 
offspring  to  the  alarming  situation  pro 
posed. 

Miss  Lamb  reached  down  and  lifted  the 
child  with  a  charming  ease  and  grace, 
and  then,  holding  her  in  her  right  arm, 
she  walked  her  horse  toward  us,  escorted 


146  B  Xiterarg  Courtship 


by  the  faithful  but  embarrassed  Benny. 
The  little  yellow-haired  midget  held  on 
to  Miss  I^amb's  neck,  her  small,  flushed 
face  pressed  against  her  protector's  chin, 
and  looked  out  upon  the  world  with  the 
light  of  victory  in  her  blue  eyes.  The 
polo  was  exciting,  at  that  moment,  and 
all  faces  were  turned  toward  the  field ; 
but  I  am  sure  John  and  I  had  the  amaze 
ment  of  a  great  multitude  in  the  fasci 
nated  gaze  with  which  we  met  the  little 
cavalcade. 

"But,  Miss  Lamb,  isn't  that  awfully 
risky  ?  "  I  remonstrated  ;  for  I  felt  that 
it  was  somebody's  duty  to  interpose  for 
the  rescue  of  the  child. 

"  Not  a  bit !  "  she  said.  "  Rosamund 
is  a  real  horsewoman ' ' ;  and  she  put 
Tiger  into  an  easy  lope  and  rode  off,  the 
baby  crowing  with  delight,  and  Benny 
looking  rather  nervous  as  escort. 

John  and  I  desisted  from  our  intention  of 
visiting  the  victoria,  and  walked  our  horses 
to  a  point  close  up  to  the  boundary, 
where  we  could  follow  the  game  better. 


JEpisoOes  147 

•'  I  suppose  that  is  the  Rosamund  of 
those  pretty  verses,"  said  I  ;  "they  are 
evidently  cronies." 

Perhaps  you  remember  the  poem  in 
which  a  certain  ' '  Baby  Rosamund ' '  is 
addressed  as  "My  little  crony."  John 
once  said  it  was  a  ' '  gem. ' ' 

He  now  sat  lost  in  thought,  instead  of 
looking  at  the  field,  till  suddenly  the 
whole  game  came  charging  down  upon 
us  with  such  a  thundering  noise  that 
John's  horse  shied  almost  from  under 
him.  The  rider  stuck  fast,  however,  and 
thus  recalled  to  his  senses,  had  the  grace 
to  look  on,  as  Ned  himself,  from  out  of  a 
tremendous  scuffle,  sent  the  ball  flying 
between  the  goals. 

"  Pretty  work  that !"  I  cried,  as  the 
applause  subsided. 

John  assented  rather  vaguely  and  then 
turned  his  horse's  head  and  seemed  about 
to  take  French  leave.  I  gave  chase  and 
asked  where  he  was  going.  He  said  it 
was  so  confoundedly  hot  standing  there 
in  the  sun  that  he  was  going  for  a  ride. 


148  a  Xiterarg  Courtsbip 


He  "had  seen  polo  before."  So  had  I; 
but  I  didn't  propose  to  lose  the  rest  of 
the  fun,  for  all  that ;  so  I  stayed  on  and 
had  a  very  pleasant  morning.  There  are 
lots  of  nice  girls  in  Colorado  Springs. 

When  I  rode  down  the  avenue  an  hour 
later,  I  was  not  altogether  surprised  to 
see  John's  horse  tied  to  Mrs.  Ellerton's 
hitching-post,  and  finding  him  sitting 
on  the  piazza  with  Miss  L,amb, — in  the 
"  confoundedly  hot"  sun,  by  the  way, — 
I  thought  I  would  go  in  and  inquire 
what  had  been  done  with  the  remaining 
pieces  of  the  baby.  Before  I  could  bring 
on  my  little  joke,  however,  Miss  Lamb, 
who,  for  the  first  time  in  our  acquaint 
ance,  looked  slightly  agitated,  was  say 
ing : 

"  O  Mr.  Dickson !  please  come  and 
defend  me.  Mr.  Brunt  is  accusing  me 
of  having  written  L,eslie  Smith's  poems." 

"And  do  you  deny  it?"  I  asked, 
filled  with  a  burning  curiosity  to  know 
the  truth. 

"What!     You  think  so  too?"    she 


149 


cried,  reproachfully,  and  my  curiosity 
went  out  like  a  candle. 

"I  couldn't  be  so  indiscreet  as  to 
think  anything  about  it,  "  I  said,  feeling 
very  small  indeed. 

'  '  And  we  have  no  right  to  ask  you 
any  questions,"  said  John,  promptly 
mounting  his  high  horse.  '  '  Dick,  I 
have  made  an  unconscionably  long  call. 
I  really  must  be  going  ;  but  don't  let  me 
hurry  you." 

'  '  Have  you  told  Miss  Lamb  how  soon 
we  are  going  home  ?  "  I  asked,  as  we  all 
stood  up. 

'  '  Going  home  ?  '  '  she  repeated,  with  a 
sudden  change  of  countenance,  and  a 
swift  glance  at  John. 

John  did  not  see  it.  He  was  occupied 
in  winding  the  lash  of  his  riding  crop 
about  the  stick  in  complicated  and  artistic 
twists. 

"We  are  going  on  the  26th,"  said  I, 
with  a  penetrating  look  at  Miss  Lamb. 

There  was  a  dead  silence  for  a  second, 
and  then  Miss  Lamb  replied  with  a  queer 


150  B  literary  Courtsbfp 


little  laugh,  the  queerer,  because  she  is 
not  the  kind  of  girl  to  laugh  by  way  of 
conversation. 

"  I  don't  know  why  I  should  be  so  sur 
prised.  I  only  wonder  that  you  should 
have  stayed  as  long  as  you  have.  There 
is  so  much  coming  and  going  here, ' '  she 
added,  more  easily,  ' '  that  we  name  our 
fleeting  visitors  '  episodes.'  " 

"  And  shall  you  call  us  '  episodes '  ?  " 
John  inquired,  letting  the  artistic  design 
untwist  with  a  snap. 

"  Why,  we  shall  have  to." 

At  that  moment  Mrs.  Ellerton  drove 
up  to  the  gate. 

"  Bad  news,  Aunt  Bessie,"  said  the 
niece  as  her  aunt  came  up  the  steps. 
"  Mr.  Brunt  and  Mr.  Dickson  are  to  join 
the  noble  army  of  '  episodes '  on  the 
26th." 

"Lilian  !  Don't  be  so  rude  !  Are  you 
really  going,  Mr.  Dickson  ?  ' ' 

"I  am  afraid  we  are,  though  we  hate 
to." 

"It  must  be  afflicting  to  go  back  to 


poor  little  provincial  New  York,"  said 
Miss  L,amb.  "Just  think  of  it,  Aunt  Bes 
sie  !  To  exchange  Pike's  Peak  Avenue 
for  Broadway,  and  picnics  at  Monument 
Park  for  the  German  Opera  and  the  Pow 
wow  !  Is  n't  it  the  Pow-wow  ?  ' ' 

Miss  Lamb's  manner  as  she  said  this 
was  singularly  out  of  character,  but  as  we 
turned  to  go,  she  spoke  like  herself  again, 
and  that  is  always  charmingly,  whatever 
she  may  be  saying. 

"  We  must  not  forget,  Mr.  Dickson,  that 
you  have  not  yet  got  that  book  of  pressed 
Colorado  flowers  for  your  sister.  Do  you 
remember,  I  told  you  they  were  done  by 
'  a  bird  in  a  cage '  ?  Aunt  Bessie,  could 
we  not  all  drive  to  Manitou  and  visit  the 
cage  some  day  this  week  ?  Say  the  day 
after  to-morrow  ?  ' ' 

' '  By  all  means,  if  the  gentlemen  can 
spare  the  time  when  they  are  going  so 
soon." 

The  gentlemen  expressed  themselves 
as  delighted.  What  had  we  come  to 
Colorado  for,  I  should  like  to  know  ! 


152  &  Xiterarg  Courtsbip 


We  had  taken  our  leave,  when  John 
turned  deliberately  back  and  said,  "  right 
out  in  meeting,"  as  it  were  : 

"I  was  unpardonably  rude,  Miss  I,amb. ' ' 

"I  think  you  were,"  she  said,  with  a 
slight  shake  in  her  voice,  of  some  sort  of 
emotion,  I  could  not  tell  what ;  ' '  and  I 
am  afraid  I  shall  not  have  time  to  forgive 
you  before  you  go. ' ' 

There  was  a  look,  half-aggrieved,  half- 
deprecating  in  her  eyes,  but  she  gave  him 
her  hand,  and  reminded  us  once  more  of 
the  hour  fixed  for  the  drive.  . 

I  don't  know  how  much  Miss  Lamb 
had  to  explain  to  Mrs.  Ellerton,  but  my 
curiosity,  at  least,  was  aroused. 

' '  What  on  earth —  '  I  began  the  mo 
ment  we  were  out  of  hearing. 

"  Oh,  I  was  an  ass.  That 's  all.  She 
sat  there  looking  so  cool  and  self-contained 
that  I  got  suddenly  perfectly  furious  at  the 
whole  thing,  and  tried  to  break  in  upon 
her  confidence.  I  can't  tell  you,  for  the  life 
of  me,  what  I  said,  but  it  was  enough  to 
that  I  knew,  and  when  she  tried 


153 


to  evade  me,  I  pulled  out  that  confounded 
poem  you  found  between  the  leaves  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  handed  it  to  her  with  what 
I  think  must  have  been  a  perfectly  devilish 
grin,  and  told  her  how  sorry  we  were  to 
seem  to  have  pried  into  her  affairs." 

'  '  Good  heavens,  John  !  You  were  an 
ass  !  '  '  There  are  moments  when  one 
must  be  frank,  or  burst.  "  But  go  on, 
go  on  !  What  did  she  say  ?  '  ' 

"What  did  she  say  ?  She  looked  vol 
umes,  but  she  only  said,  '  One  can  hap 
pily  copy  much  better  things  than  one 
could  write  '  ;  and  at  that  moment  you 
rode  up,  and  I  am  perfectly  certain  you 
saved  my  life." 

'  '  Glad  to  hear  it,  Jack.  Did  she  seem 
so  dangerous  ?  '  ' 

"  No,  not  that  !  I  was  merely  wither 
ing  up  inside.  Not  a  pleasant  form  of 
demise,"  he  added,  dryly. 

'  '  But,  on  the  whole,  what  impression 
did  you  get?"  I  asked,  for  being  of  a 
practical  turn  of  mind  I  wanted  to  get  hold 
of  the  facts. 


i54  B  XfteratE  Courtship 


' '  I  got  the  impression  that  I  had  better 
mind  my  own  business. ' ' 

I  was  really  sorry  for  Jack.  He  had 
certainly  made  a  mess  of  it.  But  I  felt 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  a  friend  to  cheer 
him  ;  so  I  said,  hopefully  : 

"  Never  mind,  Jack.  When  you  are 
an  'episode,'  you  won't  care  a  rap  about 
the  whole  affair." 

To  this  cheerful  proposition  he  had 
nothing  to  say  ;  and  I  tried  another  tack. 

"  Don't  you  see  ?  "  said  I,  "  Miss  Lamb 
was  sure  to  be  offended  in  either  case. 
Whether  she  wrote  the  poems  or  not, 
she  would  hate  to  be  taxed  with  it,  con 
sidering  the  '  autobiographical '  ones. ' ' 

"  My  dear  Dick,  when  a  man  knows 
he  has  been  an  infernal  idiot  there  is  no 
use  in  proving  it  as  though  it  were  a  point 
of  law.  Unless,  of  course,  you  think 
it  valuable  practice.  In  that  case,  just 
reduce  me  to  powder  without  a  qualm." 

Upon  that  I  returned  to  my  first  tack. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "  I  hope  you  will  be 
as  glad  as  I  shall  be  when  we  are  out  of 


155 


the  whole  muddle.  I,  for  one,  am  sick 
of  complications.  I  already  lie  awake 
nights,  thinking  how  simple  life  in  New 
York  will  seem.  There,  at  least,  one 
can  call  a  spade,  a  spade,  and  if  there 
are  broken  hearts  lying  round  loose,  one 
does  not  know  it.  '  ' 

"Can't  you  pursue  the  comparison 
with  some  allusion  to  clubs  and  dia 
monds?  The  joker  might  certainly  be 
worked  in  here.  '  ' 

John  must  indeed  have  been  very  low 
in  his  mind.  With  some  men  a  pun  is 
the  natural  outcome  of  exhilaration  ;  the 
head  and  the  heart  get  light  together. 
With  John,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  only 
an  indication  of  the  deepest  gloom. 

I  gave  up  trying  to  cheer  him,  and 
turned  my  thoughts  to  Miss  Lamb.  Her 
demeanor  had  suggested  many  ques 
tions  which  I  found  myself  quite  una 
ble  to  answer.  Was  she  aware  of 
John's  interest?  Did  she  reciprocate? 
What  was  the  significance  of  that  swift 
glance,  and  the  ensuing  pause,  when  I 


156  a  literary  Courtsbip 


announced  the  date  of  our  departure  ? 
Why  did  she  suddenly  seem  flippant? 
The  flippancy  was  a  mask  of  course. 
Was  it  assumed  to  hide  her  chagrin  at 
being  found  out,  or  to  conceal  her  dis 
pleasure  at  John's  impertinence  ?  For 
indeed  no  milder  term  will  suffice.  Was 
she  merely  afraid  that  we  should  see  how 
sorry  she  was  that  John  was  going  ?  In 
other  words,  did  she  like  him  ?  If  she 
did,  was  he  her  first  choice,  or  had  she  a 
"past,"  as  the  saying  is.  How  fer 
vently  I  now  hoped  that  the  ' '  past ' ' 
existed  only  in  our  undisciplined  imagi 
nations.  I  could  not  bear  that  John 
should  break  his  heart  over  the  woman 
who  wrote  the  ' '  Sonnets  of  Constance. ' ' 
Yet  she  must  have  written  them.  Every 
thing  went  to  prove  it.  And  then  I 
thought  of  her  clear  eye  and  her  healthy 
way  of  looking  and  talking,  and  I  was 
more  in  a  mix  than  ever. 

Yes,  nothing  could  be  more  futile  than 
such  speculations,  and  I  finally  made  an 
end  of  them. 


XVI. 

A   BIRD  IN  A   CAGE. 

"THE  24th  was  cold  as  Greenland, 
but  one  does  not  mind  the  ther 
mometer  in  Colorado  when  there  is  no 
wind,  and  we  found  the  double  buck- 
board  before  Mrs.  Ellerton's  door,  and 
the  two  ladies  equipped  for  their  drive. 
I  remember  how  well  Miss  Lamb  looked, 
dressed  in  the  cheerful  black  which  can 
not  be  mistaken  for  mourning.  I  liked 
the  little  round  velvet  hat  she  wore,  and 
she  was  particularly  becoming  to  the 
shoulder  cape  of  long  shiny  black  fur 
which  she  had  on.  Mrs.  Ellerton,  who 


158  a  Xtterars  Courtsbip 


appeared  as  a  dimly  defined  but  very 
expensive  mass  of  sealskin,  invited  John 
to  sit  with  her,  while  Miss  I,amb,  with  a 
half  apology  to  me,  kept  the  reins  herself. 

1 '  The  horses  are  going  to  dance, ' '  she 
said,  "  and  I  am  sure  I  shall  enjoy  them 
more  than  you  would. ' '  The  horses  did 
dance,  and  Miss  Lamb  managed  them 
beautifully. 

' '  I  am  afraid  Mr.  Brunt  wishes  he  were 
nearer  the  scene  of  action,"  said  Mrs. 
Ellerton,  as  the  nigh  horse  gave  a  play 
ful  kick,  and  the  other  one  cocked  his 
ears  at  an  eccentric  angle  which  boded 
mischief. 

John  protested,  politely,  and  I  reflected 
that  he  must  have  a  fine  view  of  the 
driver.  The  stinging  air  had  heightened 
her  color,  and  there  was  an  intent  look 
on  her  face,  and  an  alertness  in  her  eyes 
which  must  have  been  agreeable  to  look 
upon.  I  was  myself  debarred  by  my 
close  proximity  from  an  unrestricted  con 
templation  thereof. 

The  horses  afforded  us  a  good  deal  of 


B  JBirO  in  a  Cage  159 


entertainment  as  we  bowled  along, 
past  the  flourishing  collection  of 
' '  sample  rooms ' '  in  Colorado  City. 
There  was  not  much  talking  done.  As 
we  approached  Manitou  it  was  curious  to 
see  how  the  mountains  seemed  to  gather 
themselves  together  and  frown  at  our 
intrusion,  a  sort  of  dumb  protest  which 
never  appears  to  make  a  deep  impression 
on  any  one  but  the  writers  of  descriptions 
in  prose  and  verse.  Manitou  looked  won 
derfully  Alpine,  lying  in  a  cleft  of  the 
hills,  so  narrow  that  the  village  had  been 
obliged  to  find  room  for  itself  by  climbing 
up  the  hillsides  on  either  hand.  The  big 
hotels  were  nearly  all  closed,  and  there 
was  a  Sunday-like  calm  in  the  street,  but 
the  noisy  brook  went  rollicking  through 
the  valley,  and  as  we  got  opposite  the 
soda  spring,  the  beginning  of  a  huge 
drove  of  cattle  emerged  from  the  Ute 
Pass  with  deep  and  various  lowings  and 
bellowings.  By  the  time  we  had  reached 
"  the  Perch,"  the  streets  were  swarming 
with  the  great  beasts,  accompanied  by 


160  H  Xiterarg  Courtsbip 


shouting  cowboys,  riding  scrawny  but 
agile  broncos,  under  whose  generalship — 
for  the  ponies  seemed  to  take  the  initia 
tive  in  the  affair — the  moving  mass  of 
creatures  was  kept  in  marching  order. 

We  stood  for  a  moment  on  the  little 
verandah,  waiting  for  admission  "The 
Perch  "  is  a  tiny  cottage  well  up  on  a 
brick-red  hillside,  whence  the  peak  is 
just  visible  above  the  enfolding  hills. 

The  door  opened  and  a  little  woman  on 
crutches  stood  before  us.  She  was  Miss 
Willet,  the  presser  of  flowers,  the  friend 
and  presumably  the  protegg  of  Miss 
I^amb.  She  seemed  prepared  for  our 
coming,  as  much  so  as  so  small  and  frail 
a  creature,  in  so  tiny  a  room,  could  be 
prepared  for  an  avalanche  of  four  great 
hearty  men  and  women.  And  we  soon 
found  that  she  was  mistress  of  the  situa 
tion. 

"Don't  sit  down,  lyilian,"  she  said,  in  a 
high,  bird-like  treble,  "don't  sit  down  till 
you've  fetched  the  tea.  You  must  be 
nearly  frozen.  It 's  all  ready ' '  she  added. 


B  S31rD  in  a  Cage  161 


as  Miss  Lamb  vanished,  "but  I  am  not 
fond  of  hobbling  about  in  company,  so 
Lilian  waits  on  me. ' ' 

Not  exactly  the  tone  of  a  protigt  I 
thought,  and  I  said  : 

' '  How  pleasant  it  is  to  hear  the  cattle 
goby." 

"Yes,  indeed,"  said  Miss  Willet. 
"That  is  about  all  the  music  we  have 
here  in  the  winter.  In  the  summer  we 
are  very  gay,  with  our  hops  and  Sunday 
concerts. ' ' 

"Do  you  go  down  to  the  hops?"  I 
asked. 

"  Dear  me,  no  !  I  have  n't  been  down 
the  hill  for  three  years.  But  the  music 
comes  up  to  me — which  is  much  easier. 
Mahomet  and  the  mountain  you  know. ' ' 

John  looked  with  a  benignant  smile  at 
the  minute  speaker,  and  said :  "So  you 
are  the  mountain  ?  ' ' 

"  Sometimes  the  mountain  and  some 
times  the  squirrel,  just  as  I  please.  I 
often  think  of  Emerson's  squirrel  when 
I  sit  here,  face  to  face  with  that  big  Pike's 


i6z  a  literary  Courtsbip 


Peak  and  crack  my  own  little  nuts.  What 
good  things  you  have  said  about  Emerson, 
Mr.  Brunt.  That  essay  of  yours  was  one 
of  the  most  toothsome  nuts  I  ever  cracked 
— saving  your  presence." 

The  sort  of  twinkle  of  appreciation  that 
accompanied  this  remark  was  delightful, 
and  I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  John  more 
pleased  with  a  compliment. 

Just  at  that  moment  Miss  I^amb  appeared 
with  the  tea,  and  he  took  the  tray  from 
her  hands  in  his  masterful  way,  and  set 
it  on  the  table  beside  Miss  Willet. 
Then  we  watched  our  little  hostess  pour 
out  tea,  with  dainty,  bird-like  motions. 
One  was  constantly  reminded  of  Miss 
Lamb's  "bird  in  a  cage."  She  looked 
as  though  she  might  be  thirty  or  forty 
or  fifty  years  old ;  it  did  not  matter 
which.  She  had  bright  dark  eyes,  and 
a  peculiarly  crisp  enunciation  ;  the  two 
most  noticeable  things  about  her.  After 
a  while  one  observed  a  slightly  drawn 
look  about  the  mouth,  but  it  smiled 
and  talked  so  much  that  it  was  only  at 


in  a  Gage  163 


rare  intervals  that  one  could  surprise  it 
at  rest. 

The  tea  wanned  a  body  up  delight 
fully,  and  the  little  cakes  were  most 
pleasing. 

' '  What  a  famous  cook  you  are,  Miss 
Willet,"  said  Mrs.  Ellerton,  as  she  tasted 
the  cakes. 

' '  Did  you  make  these  delectable  little 
things  yourself?  "  asked  John. 

' '  Who  else  should  make  them  ?  ' '  she 
demanded,  with  a  quick  turn  of  the  head. 
"  You  don't  suppose  I  keep  a  retinue  of 
servants  in  this  dry -goods  box  ?  " 

"  Would  it  take  a  retinue  ?  " 

"Lilian,"  said  she,  with  apparent  ir 
relevance.  ' '  You  are  the  most  conside 
rate  young  person  of  my  acquaintance. 
You  never  find  it  necessary  to  embellish 
your  conversation  with  an  account  of 
your  friends'  idiosyncrasies.  Now  some 
of  my  very  well-meaning  acquaintances 
show  me  off  to  their  friends  as  a  sort  of 
curiosity,  as  being  a  woman  who  lives 
quite  alone,  and  is  an  extremely  odd  fish. 


164  B  XtteratB  Courtsbip 


I  '11  warrant  that  Lilian  has  never  even 
told  you  of  the  five  cats  which  have 
lightened  my  solitude  from  time  to  time, 
only  to  go  the  way  of  Colorado  cats  as 
promptly  as  though  they  had  an  appoint 
ment  to  keep. ' ' 

' '  And  what  is  the  way  of  Colorado 
cats  ?  We  don' t  even  know  that. ' ' 

"A  premature  death.  They  are  as 
rare  as  peacocks  here.  You  can't  induce 
them  to  live.  And  I  won't  have  a  dog, 
because  he  would  bark  if  a  burglar  ap 
proached  the  house,  and  scare  me  out  of 
my  wits." 

' '  And  you  really  live  here  entirely 
alone?"  asked  Brunt,  in  that  great, 
friendly,  benevolent  voice  he  has  for  all 
fragile  creatures.  We  both  thought  of 
the  wild  Indians  and  wilder  cowboys, 
with  which  our  imaginations  had  former 
ly  peopled  Colorado.  Yet,  even  so,  the 
wild  beasts  seldom  harm  the  birds. 

"Well,  not  quite  alone,"  the  tiny 
woman  was  saying.  ' '  There  are  Gog 
and  Magog  up  there" — pointing  to  two 


B  JBtrd  in  a  Case 


monstrous  rocks  on  the  opposite  mountain 
side, — "  and  there  is  my  cuckoo-clock 
that  little  Rosamund  brought  me  on  her 
first  birthday.  And  then  a  woman  comes 
in  for  an  hour  every  morning  to  tidy  me 
up.  I  name  them  in  the  order  of  theii 
importance.  I  could  dispense  with  the 
woman  much  more  lightly  than  with  Gog 
and  Magog,  or  the  clock  either. ' ' 

We  looked  with  interest  at  Gog  and 
Magog,  remembering  that  Leslie  Smith 
had  celebrated  their  "uncouth  majes 
ties."  Miss  Willet's  talk  ran  on  with 
unfailing  fluency  and  spirit,  and,  withal, 
a  quite  irresistible  charm.  It  was  like 
firelight.  It  flickered  from  one  theme 
to  another  and  brightened  everything  it 
touched.  John  was  clearly  enchanted 
with  the  whole  situation.  He  sat  there 
looking  from  the  ' '  birC  ' '  to  Miss  L,amb 
and  from  Miss  I^amb  to  thv.  "  bird,  "  with 
such  a  blissful  content  in  his  face,  that  it 
seemed  to  me  he  must  have  a  deeper 
source  of  satisfaction  than  the  mere  pleas 
ure  of  listening  to  this  bird-like  chirping. 


166  B  XfterarE  Courtsblp 


She  showed  us  her  books  of  pressed 
flowers  and  we  longed  to  buy  out  her 
entire  stock.  But  delicacy  forbade,  and 
we  were  obliged  to  content  ourselves 
with  taking  two  of  the  very  largest  and 
most  expensive.  I  am  sure  that  when 
Miss  Willet  told  us  that  "Lilian"  had 
gathered  most  of  her  flowers  for  her,  John 
would  have  joyfully  paid  half  his  for 
tune  for  a  single  specimen.  That,  how 
ever,  was  happily  not  necessary.  We  do 
not  have  to  pay  half  our  fortune  for  the 
things  we  most  desire.  If  we  get  them 
at  all,  they  come  as  a  free  gift. 

When  we  were  taking  leave,  Miss 
Willet,  still  sitting  in  her  chair,  put  her 
tiny  hand  into  John's  big  one,  and  said, 
very  warmly  :  "  I  don't  suppose  I  shall 
ever  see  you  again,  Mr.  Brunt,  but  I 
should  like  you  to  know  that  it  has  been 
a  very  particular  gratification  to  me  to 
see  you  to-day." 

"  It  cannot  possibly  be  to  you  what  it 
has  been  to  me,  Miss  Willet,"  said  John, 
in  his  very  deepest  voice,  "and  I  think 
we  shall  meet  again. ' ' 


B  JBtrD  tn  a  Cage  167 


I  stood  stupidly  wondering  at  this 
exchange  of  rather  ardent  compliments, 
without  an  inkling  of  what  it  all  meant ; 
nor  could  I  divine  why  John  was  in  such 
spirits  on  the  homeward  drive.  He  talked 
so  entertainingly,  and  with  such  delight 
ful  abandonment,  that  his  companion, 
Mrs.  Bllerton,  seemed  quite  swept  out  of 
her  usual  placid  indolence,  and  responded 
with  an  animation  which  I  had  not 
thought  her  capable  of.  Miss  Lamb  and 
I  did  more  listening  than  talking. 

To  cap  the  climax  of  this  exhilarating 
morning,  we  found  an  advance  copy  of 
Leslie  Smith's  poems  awaiting  us  at  the 
hotel.  John  tore  open  the  wrapper  with 
feverish  impatience,  as  we  walked  along 
the  corridor  to  our  rooms,  and  by  the 
time  we  got  to  his  door  he  had  taken  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  entire  contents. 

"Is  n't  that  a  pretty  bit  of  binding 
and  printing  ?  ' '  said  he,  exultantly,  as 
we  shut  the  door  behind  us. 

It  was,  indeed,  all  and  more  than  our 
fancy  had  painted.  Whoever  might  be 
their  author,  the  poems  of  Leslie  Smith 


i68  a  OLfterars  Courtsbip 


had  made  their  debut,  equipped,  as  the 
newspapers  say,  "with  every  advantage 
the  bookmaker's  art  could  bestow." 

I  was  still  admiring  them,  when  John, 
who  had  stood,  meanwhile,  fairly  fuming 
with  impatience,  cried  :  ' '  And  now  we 
know  who  wrote  them  !  " 

"Has  she  confessed?"  Tasked,  look 
ing  up  from  my  favorite  Knighted. 

' '  Confessed  ?  No.  But  there  can't  be 
any  doubt  about  it.  Everything  goes  to 
prove  it.  '  Gog  and  Magog,'  '  Solitude,' 
'The  Cripple's  Cup.'  I  tell  you  that 
'  Cripple's  Cup '  is  an  inside  view." 

' '  Good  gracious,  Jack  ! ' '  said  I.  ' '  You 
don't  think  the  '  bird  in  the  cage  '  wrote 
them?" 

"  If  she  didn't,  nobody  did  !  Why  it 
was  all  in  her  eye  as  plain  as  print. ' ' 

' '  What  was  in  her  eye,  Jack  ?  Do  talk 
sense." 

"The  inspired  ones,  the  best  ones; 
and  the  melancholy  ones  were  in  the  cor 
ners  of  her  mouth  ;  and  the  witty  ones 
were  in  the  cut  of  her  nose  ;  and  the  de- 


a  JBtrO  in  a  Cage  169 


scriptive  ones  in  her  whole  environment ; 
and  the  philosophy  was  in  her  crutches  !  " 

I  did  not  propose  to  be  convinced  by 
such  random  talk  as  this,  but  somehow  I 
began  to  feel  as  though  I  had  made  the 
discovery  all  on  my  own  account. 

' '  How  are  you  going  to  make  sure  ?  ' ' 
I  asked. 

' '  This  is  how  I  am  going  to  make 
sure, ' '  and  John  sat  down,  and  scribbled 
off  these  few  lines  : 

"  MY  DEAR  Miss  LAMB  : 

"An  advance  copy  of  the  poems 
of  Leslie  Smith  has  just  arrived.     Could  we 
not  take  them  to  her  this  afternoon  ?     You 
were  intending  to  ride,  were  you  not  ? 
"  Yours, 

"John  Brunt." 

In  half  an  hour  the  answer  came  : 

"  MY  DEAR  MR.  BRUNT  : 

"  I  saw  you  had  guessed  our 
secret.  The  days  are  very  short  We  must 
start  by  two  o'clock. 

"  Yours  very  sincerely, 

"  Lilian  Leslie  Lamb." 


170  H  literate  Courtship 


At  two  o'clock  they  were  off  and  I  was 
left  to  chew  the  cud  of  my  reflections. 
These  were  not  altogether  soothing.  I 
felt  perfectly  sure  now  that  sooner  or  later 
John  would  take  the  plunge,  and  I  felt 
for  him.  Such  an  awkward  thing  to  do 
under  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
and  who  could  tell  how  Miss  I,amb  would 
like  it  after  sitch  a  very  short  acquaint 
ance.  She  did  not  impress  me  as  a  girl 
who  would  say  ' '  Yes,  thank  you  "  as  a 
matter  of  course  just  because  John  was  a 
distinguished  man  and  a  fine  fellow,  and 
I  could  not  form  any  surmise  as  to  the 
state  of  her  feelings  toward  him.  I  did 
not  think  she  was  indifferent  to  him  ;  no 
intelligent  person  ever  was,  to  my  knowl 
edge  ;  but  from  indifference  to  "  for  bet 
ter,  for  worse,"  is  a  far  cry.  I  recalled 
what  Ned  Randall  had  said  about  her 
"  lucidity,"  and  that  was  some  little  com 
fort.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  I  was  not  sure 
that  John  was  the  man  to  be  deterred  by 
"lucidity,"  unless  it  were  very  marked 
indeed.  He  had  not  Ned's  vanity  to 


H  JBirJ)  in  a  Cage  171 


cause  him  to  shrink  from  a  rebuff,  nor 
Benny  Mortimer's  excessive  modesty  to 
make  him  self-distrustful.  He  would 
survive  a  rejection,  of  course.  It  would 
take  more  than  that  to  demolish  John, 
or  at  least  I  hoped  so,  but  it  would 
be  rough,  and  I  could  n't  bear  to  think 
of  it. 

Then  I  imagined  her  saying  yes,  and 
that  was  about  as  bad  as  the  other. 

' '  O  I,ord  !  "  I  caught  myself  saying. 
' '  Why  need  she  have  been  such  a  pro 
voking  paragon  ?  What  did  she  want  to 
go  and  do  all  those  charming  things  for  ? 
Was  it  not  enough  that  she  should  write 
such  uncommonly  good  letters,  and  drag 
us  out  by  them  to  this  fatal  place,  with 
out  being  so  unnecessarily  good-looking, 
and  riding  so  absurdly  well,  and  talking 
just  after  John's  own  heart,  and  being, 
altogether,  I  verily  believe,  the  one  woman 
on  this  planet  whom  John  would  lose  his 
head  over  ?  ' ' 

My  mind  reverted  to  the  grace  and 
sweetness  with  which  she  picked  up  that 


172  a  Xtterarg  Courtsbip 


picturesque  infant  at  the  Polo  Ground 
and  rode  off  with  it ;  to  the  manner  in 
which  she  poked  the  fire  the  first  evening 
of  our  acquaintance,  letting  the  flame 
light  up  her  face  ;  to  her  firm  hand  and 
quick  eye  as  she  drove  those  prancing 
steeds  to  Manitou.  All  seemed  like  so 
many  wanton  shots  let  fly  without  regard 
to  the  mischief  they  might  do.  And  of 
course  it  was  her  perfect  unconsciousness 
which  rendered  them  fatal.  I  actually 
felt  a  grudge  against  her  for  having  tum 
bled  out  of  the  apple  tree  at  the  age  of 
seven,  and  for  having  so  politely  thanked 
her  torturer  for  his  services.  I  remem 
bered  with  a  shudder  a  remark  John  made 
one  day  when  we  first  came  to  Colorado, 
and  I  was  harping  on  the  old  string  of 
Leslie  Smith's  identity. 

"I  don't  care  whether  Miss  L,amb 
writes  poetry  or  not, ' '  John  had  suddenly 
declared.  ' '  She  is  a  better  poem  herself 
than  any  I  ever  read. ' ' 

Yes,  John  was  in  for  it,  that  was  sure 
as  sunrise,  and  as  I  could  n't  make  up  my 


ll  Strd  in  a  ttage 


173 


mind  which  would  be  my  choice  of  two 
evils,  I  went  forth  and  paid  some  duty 
calls,  thanking  my  stars  that  all  girls  were 
not  so  exasperatingly  admirable  as  this 
one. 


XVII. 

ON  HORSEBACK  ! 

\\  7  HEN  I  got  home,  long  after  dark,  I 
*  ^      found  John  striding  up  and  down 

my  room  in  a  blaze  of  glory  from  all  the 

gas-burners,  every  one  of  which  he  had 

lighted  up,  for  some  reason  best  known 

to  himself. 

" Hullo !  "  said  I.     "Got  back ? " 
To  which  original  greeting  he  responded 

by  wringing  my  hand  unmercifully. 
"Good  heavens,  Jack!"   I  groaned, 

partly  from  physical  anguish,  partly  from 


©n  f)orset>ach!  175 


the  shock  of  a  tremendous  conviction. 
"You  don't  want  my  hand." 

He  dropped  it,  and  then  he  laughed, 
that  splendid  old  laugh  of  his  that  would 
make  a  raven  smile. 

' '  Dick,  you  blessed  youngster, ' '  said 
he,  "are  n't  you  going  to  congratulate 
me?" 

"John  Brunt,"  said  I,  "you  have  n't 
done  the  deed  ?" 

He  says  my  voice  was  awe-struck,  but 
I  know  better.  Awe  was  not  the  emotion 
I  felt  at  the  moment. 

"Yes,  Dick,"  he  said,  with  a  sudden 
solemnity,  ' '  she  has  accepted  me. ' ' 

"What!  On  horseback?"  I  cried,  for 
that  circumstance  was  really  the  first 
thing  that  struck  me. 

"Yes,  on  horseback,"  he  admitted, 
and  then  he  laughed  again. 

I  did  not  press  for  details.  In  fact  I  was 
too  much  taken  aback  at  first  to  ask  any 
more  questions,  and  I  found  John  more 
inclined  to  talk  of  the  earlier  part  of  the 
trip.  He  gave  a  comical  account  of  little 


a  Xiterarg  Couttsbfp 


Miss  Willet's  consternation  when  she 
found  that  her  secret  was  out.  But  John 
swore  himself  and  me  also  to  secrecy, 
and  bye  and  bye  she  thawed  out  and  let 
him  see  her  joy  in  the  book,  which  she 
handled  in  a  caressing  way  that  told  her 
story  better  than  words. 

On  their  way  home  he  seems  to  have 
confessed  to  his  companion  how  he  had 
tormented  himself  with  the  question  of 
the  authorship,  and  that  was  sure  to 
bring  about  a  declaration,  as  anybody 
could  see. 

They  rode  in  over  the  lower  Mesa.  It 
was  getting  dark,  and  was  so  cold  that 
they  rode  fast.  I  can  imagine  how  the 
hoof  beats  chimed  in  with  John's  im 
petuous  words,  and  if  Miss  Lamb  is  the 
woman  I  take  her  for,  her  own  pulse 
must  have  kept  time  with  both. 


XVIII. 

A  TOAST. 

IT  was  a  glorious  Christmas  morning 
*  and  Pike's  Peak  was  in  his  grandest 
mood,  glittering  white  in  the  sunshine, 
with  warm  dark  shadows  in  the  deep 
ravines. 

We  stood,  paying  homage  to  the  splen 
did  old  fellow,  on  our  way  to  the  break 
fast-room,  and  I  gave  John's  hand  a  good 
hard  grip  by  way  of  apology  for  my  some 
what  incomplete  congratulations  of  the 
night  before. 


178  a  OLiterars  Gourtsbfp 


"  Is  n't  it  glorious  ! "  he  said,  with  an 
air  of  including  life  in  general  in  his 
encomium. 

"  You  like  Pike's  Peak  better  than  you 
did  at  first, ' '  I  remarked. 

"Like  it?     I  adore  it." 

"All  in  three  weeks,"  I  murmured, 
ruefully. 

"  All  in  three  weeks  !" 

His  tone  was  positively  jubilant,  and  I 
could  not  but  admire  him.  A  man  who 
can  keep  up  his  spirits  at  such  a  time 
must  have  a  lot  of  grit. 

"  Have  you  told  her  about  the  other 
Lilian  ?  "  I  asked. 

His  face  fell,  and  I  fancied  he  was 
thinking  of  the  twentieth  edition.  Only 
nineteen  had  yet  appeared. 

"  No.  I  meant  to,  but  it  did  n't  come 
in  naturally." 

"  You  '11  have  to  tell  her  before  long, 
you  know. ' ' 

"Dick,  I  wonder  how  she  will  take 
it." 

"  Poh  !  she  will  be  pleased  as  Punch,  I 


B  Coast.  179 

warrant  3x511.  But  I  wish  I  might  be 
there  to  see  her  surprise. ' ' 

The  two  Lilians  were  to  ride  again  that 
morning.  John  was  polite  but  not  urgent 
in  inviting  me  to  accompany  them.  But 
we  were  both  bidden  to  dinner,  and  I 
felt  that  I  could  curb  my  impatience  till 
then. 

In  the  course  of  the  morning,  however, 
I  paid  my  respects  to  Mrs.  Kllerton,  who 
seemed  to  be  taking  it  very  philosophi 
cally.  Women  have  so  much  nerve  in  an 
emergency.  To  be  sure,  Mrs.  Ellerton 
had  come  to  like  John  very  well,  es^ 
pecially  after  she  learned  that  his  mother 
was  a  Van  Deusenberg.  As  for  me,  it 
*would  not  have  reconciled  me  in  the  least 
degree  if  Miss  Lamb's  mother  had  been 
the  Empress  of  Madagascar.  I  often 
wonder  if  women  care  as  much  about 
things  as  men  do. 

Just  before  we  started  out  to  dine  at 
Mrs.  Ellerton' s  John  received  a  letter 
from  the  Sandersons.  He  opened  it  and 
read  it  with  a  grunt  of  satisfaction. 


i8o  B  literary  Courtsbtp 


"  What  pleases  you,  Jack  ?  "  I  asked. 

1 '  The  twentieth  edition, ' '  said  he.  "I 
always  meant  to  tell  when  the  twentieth 
edition  was  out." 

"I  do  believe,"  said  I,  as  we  walked 
up  the  avenue,  "  I  do  believe  that  you 
are  perfectly  easy  in  your  mind  about  the 
whole  thing  since  you  have  gained  your 
point." 

"Perhaps  you  are  right,  Dick,"  said 
he.  "  I  suddenly  feel  as  though  I  had 
been  a  fool  to  worry  about  it.  I  am  sure 
Miss  I^amb  will  understand  everything 
perfectly.  I  say,  Dick,  why  did  n't  you 
tell  me  what  a  fool  I  was  ?  ' ' 

"  I  did  n't  find  you  susceptible  to  hints 
in  that  direction,  and  one  does  n't  want' 
to  be  brutal.     But,  look  here,  Jack.    She 
may  forgive  you,  but  what  will  she  think 
of  me  for  making  her  write  that  letter  ?  ' ' 

"Oh,  she  won't  resent  anything  you 
have  done  ! ' ' 

This  was  more  consolatory  than  flatter 
ing. 

"  I  should  like  to  be  by  when  the  cur- 


B  Coast.  181 

tain  goes  up,"  I  said,  meekly  overlooking 
the  snub. 

"  Perhaps  you  may  be.  I  don't  mind 
if  you  give  it  a  hoist  yourself." 

The  two  ladies  met  us  in  the  hall  just 
as  they  did  the  first  evening  we  dined 
there.  Miss  Lamb  had  on  a  gown  of 
some  sort  of  lacy  black  stuff  that  was 
very  becoming.  She  wore  some  roses, 
which,  together  with  her  brilliant  face, 
lighted  things  up  finely.  I  don't  mean 
that  her  color  was  brilliant.  It  was  more 
the  look.  I  thought  of  the  star  John 
once  compared  it  to.  He  evidently  was 
not  so  far  afield  in  that  comparison  as 
lovers  usually  are.  Somehow  I  found 
myself  with  a  very  warm  feeling  toward 
Miss  Lamb,  in  spite  of  my  personal 
grievance,  and  I  had  a  much  easier  time 
with  my  congratulations  than  I  had  an 
ticipated. 

I  never  saw  a  newly  engaged  couple 
carry  it  off  better  than  did  those  two. 
They  seemed  to  take  it  for  granted  in 
such  a  comfortable  way,  yet  there  was  no 


i8a  a  Xttcrars  Courtebip 


mistaking  them.  Their  state  of  mind, 
though  unobtrusive,  was  clearly  beatific. 
After  all,  one  must  be  a  monster  of  sel 
fishness,  not  to  rejoice  in  the  happiness 
of  one's  best  friend,  however  misguided 
he  may  be.  Besides  which,  there  was  the 
Bengal  tiger  in  the  background.  That  was 
a  justification  such  as  few  weddings  have. 

Once  more  John  took  Mrs.  Bllerton 
in  to  dinner,  and  I  Miss  I^amb,  and  the 
similarity  of  the  situation,  together  with 
the  stupendous  changes,  made  it  really 
bewildering.  Once  more  Mrs.  Ellerton 
opened  the  subject  of  the  mysterious 
author  of  Spoils,  and  this  time  her  niece 
attempted  no  diversion. 

"You  must  write  to  Miss  I^amb  soon," 
said  the  elder  lady,  beaming  at  her  niece 
over  a  great  dish  of  roses.  ' '  She  will  be 
so  interested  in  everything. ' ' 

Miss  I^amb  looked  across  at  her  aunt 
with  a  singular  smile  and  said  :  ' '  There 
is  no  use  in  writing  to  her,  Aunt  Bessie, 
I  have  reason  to  think  she  does  not  read 
my  letters." 


B  Goast,  183 

"Does  not  read  your  letters?"  Aunt 
Bessie  repeated,  in  an  incredulous  tone 
of  voice,  while  John  and  I  looked  at  each 
other.  I  don't  know  how  he  felt,  but  a 
cold  shiver  ran  down  my  back.  It  is  one 
thing  to  confess,  and  quite  another  thing 
to  be  found  out. 

John  retained  his  self-possession  and 
said  :  "  The  author  of  Spoils  was  re* 
solved,  long  ago,  to  reveal  his  identity 
whenever  the  twentieth  edition  should 
be  out.  The  twentieth  edition  was  out 
yesterday. ' ' 

' '  Then  we  may  congratulate  you 
now? "  said  Miss  Lamb,  with  a  delicious 
turn  of  the  head,  and  a  brimming  sort 
of  smile.  "  I  have  long  wanted  to." 

This  time  John  flushed,  and  Mrs.  Bller- 
ton  looked  more  mystified  than  ever. 

"  What  is  it  all  about,  Lilian?"  she 
asked.  "  Are  you  in  the  secret  ?  " 

' '  Yes,  Aunt  Bessie.  I  have  been  in  the 
secret  for  more  than  three  weeks.  Is  it 
possible  that  you  did  not  recognize  Mr. 
Brunt's  description  that  first  evening? 


184  H  Xiterarg  Gourtsbtp 


You  said  yourself  that  it  was  strangely 
unlike  a  middle-aged  authoress. ' ' 

The  champagne  had  just  been  served, 
and  without  waiting  for  explanations  I 
proposed  a  toast. 

Within,  the  roses  and  the  candle-light 
and  the  sparkling  wine  adorned  the  feast, 
but  it  was  of  Pike's  Peak  I  was  think 
ing, — of  Pike's  Peak  wrapped  in  snow, 
towering  big  and  benignant  in  the  star 
light,  as  we  gaily  drank  to  the  health 
of  "the  two  Lilians." 

THE  END. 


40^73 


